UIF continued…. Important Information
Firstly, important information when claiming UIF – personal details such as surnames are a real problem, especially for married women. This is because the surnames at the Dept of Labour don’t always match the surnames which Home Affairs has for you, despite the fact that you may have your new ID in your new surname. In addition, if your surname at the Dept of Labour doesn’t match the surname that your bank account is in, then payments will not go through. When problems do occur, the onus is on the claimant to prove their information is correct but either going to Home Affairs, or the bank etc, to obtain substantiating evidence that their information is correct.
Secondly, keeping up to date with the employment information for any employee is the number priority for all employers. Communications regarding what exactly an employer is required to do in order to keep their employee’s information up to date are few and far between. Initially, just the Ui19 (Declaration) form would suffice. Then the request for Ui19’s for all employers over the past 4 years arose – the goal of which was to use this information to update gaps in employment history on at the Dept of Labour. Multiple Ui19’s sometimes needed to be submitted and verified by the Dept, which is done via telephone. More recently an additional form was introduced; the salary schedule form. Luckily this time only required to be completed by current or most recent employer. And in the most recent of events, this Salary schedule sheet is required for employers of Domestic workers as well.
What employers, commercial as well as domestic, really need to know claiming UIF, is that essentially, a UI19 (Declaration) form should be submitted manually (ie via email), on a monthly basis, for each and every one of their employees, in addition to any and all electronic UIF returns. In conjunction, every time an employee’s working hours or salary is amended, the salary schedule form must be submitted. However when it comes to claims, merely submitting the forms is not enough. In reality, the processing and updating of these documents may only occur after many manual submissions.
