Basic information for filing for unemployment benefits at season’s end.

(Updated for 2016 - 17 season)

PLEASE NOTE:

The information provided below should NOT be considered official LPO advice to employees.

The following info is offered as helpful advice from your musician colleagues...

     1)     Start the unemployment application process online  HERE.  The application pages are self explanatory. At the end of the current season, LPO members are eligible to file beginning Sunday, May 21, 2017. (May 20, 2017 is the last calendar day of employment, even if you do not play the final services of the season.)

     2)     In addition to all the application info required on the first pages of the unemployment website, you’ll need to supply the following information during the application process.

        • Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

          1010 Common Street, Suite 2120

          New Orleans, LA 70112

          504-523-6530

          Employer’s Louisiana State Tax ID: 7845084001

        • American Federation of Musicians

          AFM Local 174-496

          2555 Ursuline Avenue

          New Orleans, LA 70119

          504-947-1700

        • For any Union  “Green Sheet” jobs you’ve played, you should list your employer as:

          Music Performance Trust Funds

          1501 Broadway, Suite 518

          New York, NY 10036

       • Date you began work (start of the current season): September 13, 2016

       • Last day of LPO employment (end of the current season):  May 20, 2017

       • Reason for separation from your LPO employment: Laid off / Lack of work

     • Date given for return to work for LPO employment: September 12, 2017

     3)     If you are a member of any A.F. of M. local, be sure to indicate that you are “...a member of a Craft Union...”

     4)     If you have income reported from teaching in a school your claim might be delayed because teachers are not able to collect unemployment over the summer. You might consider using the comment box at the end of the application process to explain that the income showing from your school was from part-time employment teaching private music lessons with no continuing contract or guarantee of being re-hired. (If that was, in fact, the case at your school.)

     5)     You will be asked to list all the employers from whom you received wages. You must list all employers from whom you received “W-2 wages” (i.e., wages from which  state and federal payroll deductions were made, as on your LPO paychecks.)

     Any income you received from miscellaneous individual gigs (in which there were no state and federal                     deductions from your paycheck) is considered “self-employed income”, as opposed “employee wages.”  This self-employed income will not appear in the computer records of your total wages that are used for the calculation of your unemployment benefits. Most people are careful not to include these miscellaneous “self-employed income” gigs in the unemployment application because of concern that it could slow up the processing the application for benefits.

     6)      If you were a full time student, or otherwise unemployed (or employed only part-time), last spring, you might be denied benefits because of not having enough qualified wages during the past 5 quarters. If that is the case, you can reapply for benefits on July 1, the beginning of the next quarter.  In some cases, the readjustment of that one quarter might add enough additional income to your record of wages to qualify you for unemployment benefits beginning in July.