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Denial of unemployment benefits, NYS

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Jfrancis

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? New York

I have a very pointed issue with my unemployment insurance denial. Perhaps it starts with a little background to my termination. I was terminated in New York State from my employer for failing six quality inspections within a six-month time span on my work. Each of those would have photo attachments to them. However, There are a few mitigating circumstances to this that warrant my appeal of the finding. First, according to the company handbook, it is four failed quality inspections in a four month time span, not six over six months. That could mean that even if I was to have failed six in a four-month span, my managers were violating their own company policy. Next, it is that I live in New York State. From what I understand of my knowledge of New York's unemployment compensation laws, job performance is not a reason to be denied unemployment insurance; especially for an employer I have working for for nearly three years.

I had filed for unemployment insurance and been granted it because I claimed that my employment had been due to termination. My employer appealed, and the Department of Labor denied me saying that my termination was now due to misconduct.

I will quote the determination:

You were discharged for misconduct in connection with your employment with the above employer. As a result of this determination the wages earned with this employer prior to âdate- cannot be used to establish any subsequent claim for unemployment insurance you may file.



Reason:

Your employer, *******, states you were discharged on -date- for failing a quality assurance inspection in which you used flex clip screws as opposed to lag bolts. As you were provided training and previously advised how to properly mount a dish assembly, your actions are considered misconduct.



From what I understand, that is not considered misconduct in NYS, but of course I may be wrong.

I also know that this will be a long and difficult fight because my former employer has a history of fighting unemployment, even for employees who were laid off!

This is a little outside the realm of discussion, but my employer is known for -setting up employees to fail, so employees do not last long enough to collect a decent wage from promotion or other merits.

Therefore with the above mentioned information I ask the following questions;
1. can I appeal this determination successfully;
2. what legal ground do I have for the appeal,
3. how can I stop my company from doing what they usually do which is drag this on for years as they have done to former co-workers of mine. I would also like some suggestions for legal representation as I am going to need it in this case.

On another side note, when I was discharged I signed a note acknowledging why I was being discharged which stated the reasons in the shown above. I did this to prevent my former employer from being able to add more stuff if they appealed like they had done before to other former co-workers of mine who did not sign, in other words I signed my pink slip so my employer could not make anymore accusations aside from that, and apparently they didn't, or were unable to from the determination notice.
 


Gadfly

Senior Member
Don't know anything about NYS, but 6 out of 6 sounds like they gave you two additional chances, provided you with training to overcome your issues and gave you additional chances. You failed.
 

Beth3

Senior Member
There are a few mitigating circumstances to this that warrant my appeal of the finding. First, according to the company handbook, it is four failed quality inspections in a four month time span, not six over six months. That could mean that even if I was to have failed six in a four-month span, my managers were violating their own company policy. So what does that mean? That your employer cut you a break by not terminating you sooner? In an instance like that, "violating company policy" isn't very relevant.

From what I understand of my knowledge of New York's unemployment compensation laws, job performance is not a reason to be denied unemployment insurance; especially for an employer I have working for for nearly three years. That is very situation-specific. If you were negligent in the performance of the quality inspections even though you could have and should have performed them to company standards, then that is willful misconduct, not "poor job performance."

You were discharged for misconduct in connection with your employment with the above employer. Which supports my comments above.

This is a little outside the realm of discussion, but my employer is known for -setting up employees to fail, so employees do not last long enough to collect a decent wage from promotion or other merits. Even if that's true, it's totally irrelevant to your situation and will not be considered by the U.C. Division. They judge each UC claim based on its own merits.

1. can I appeal this determination successfully; You're certainly free to try. No one here can advise you of what the outcome will be.

2. what legal ground do I have for the appeal, The same rights as any other claimant who has been denied benefits; State UC reg's allow you to request a hearing. You don't need "legal grounds" to do so.

3. how can I stop my company from doing what they usually do which is drag this on for years as they have done to former co-workers of mine. Years? I rather doubt that. The UC Division sets the time table for initial determinations, hearings, appeals, when benefits are paid, etc., not the employer.

I would also like some suggestions for legal representation as I am going to need it in this case. No reputable legal board provides attorney referrals.
 

rlrl

Member
I recall browsing...

the NY state unemployment insurance division's site a few months ago when i was given a new computer that I was given training for and i was paranoid that i was going to get fired because i still had some problems with it despite the training. Luckily I worked out all the bugs. However i still get paranoid over these types of things anyway .
I do recall reading something about that it may not be considered misconduct if it is determined that the employee could not learn or was not capable of learning what they needed to do. However, since you were trained and probably signed off on training that you would be responsible for the outcome (did you sign something like this?) this may be hard to prove.

Are you 'at will" or do you have an employment contract? I know with contracts you can only be fired if you violate some term or condition of the contract. Did you have a contract that stated what reasons you could be fired for?

What kind of things did you sign as far as what you were responsible for and what would happen if things didn't work out?
 

Gadfly

Senior Member
Stop wasting your time trying to get unemployment. Focus your energies on findin a new job. The White House claims a 4.5% umemployment rate. Finding a job should be a breeze.
 

Jfrancis

Junior Member
reply

I helps if I continue to clarify further,
first off, yes, continualy finding another job is always on my agenda, it has been for more than year, but of course for very private reasons I am obligated to stay in NY and not go elsewhere for employment. For my field, this is a poor area to find employment. On to the rest. I was not notified of failed inspections. It was given to me at time of termination with no opportunity for me to explain myself. Also, work rules were changed often at the discretion of my former general manager and were semingly designed to give the employer a reason to fire employees deliberately when expediant and in such a fashion as to make it difficult if not impossible for employees to claim unemployment compensation being that of the several dozen employees who have been terminated over the past three years, only one, and one of twelve layed off employees was able to rececive unemployment compensation. How in NYS do you manage to denie laid off employees compensation is beyond me? If you were due to have a clean slate at the begining, for example as was company policy, our GM continued to have last year's inspections or other write ups follow over to the next year. Of course this could all be arbiratry because how the work rules are applied might be up to the GM of the particular facillity. However, there is also the final matter that this was an At Will employer, and there was no contract. There also is no union since the employees voted out the union two years ago. Of course, I can try to get a bunch of work witnesses and try to essemble a monolithic case agaisnt my former employer, but I am just hoping that the NYS law protecs me somewhat. I also am still pondering the definition of willful misconduct as it applies to NYS law.
Lastly, my motive is simple, just the money I would have gotten through unemployment so I can pay my bills till I start the next job.
 

Jfrancis

Junior Member
I helps if I continue to clarify further,
first off, yes, continualy finding another job is always on my agenda, it has been for more than year, but of course for very private reasons I am obligated to stay in NY and not go elsewhere for employment. For my field, this is a poor area to find employment. On to the rest. I was not notified of failed inspections. It was given to me at time of termination with no opportunity for me to explain myself. Also, work rules were changed often at the discretion of my former general manager and were semingly designed to give the employer a reason to fire employees deliberately when expediant and in such a fashion as to make it difficult if not impossible for employees to claim unemployment compensation being that of the several dozen employees who have been terminated over the past three years, only one, and one of twelve layed off employees was able to rececive unemployment compensation. How in NYS do you manage to denie laid off employees compensation is beyond me? If you were due to have a clean slate at the begining, for example as was company policy, our GM continued to have last year's inspections or other write ups follow over to the next year. Of course this could all be arbiratry because how the work rules are applied might be up to the GM of the particular facillity. However, there is also the final matter that this was an At Will employer, and there was no contract. There also is no union since the employees voted out the union two years ago. Of course, I can try to get a bunch of work witnesses and try to essemble a monolithic case agaisnt my former employer, but I am just hoping that the NYS law protecs me somewhat. I also am still pondering the definition of willful misconduct as it applies to NYS law.
Lastly, my motive is simple, just the money I would have gotten through unemployment so I can pay my bills till I start the next job.
 

Gadfly

Senior Member
So maybe it's time for a carrear change?

All the other stuff is only fluff unless lots and lots of others are getting let go for the same reasons you are. If not, it only goes to show that things change and you don't change with them. You're not building a case, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
 

Jfrancis

Junior Member
Reply

Thank you so very much, you have been as helpful as a desert to a goldfish, perhaps I need to look at another forum to have questions answered.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
It's not that your questions haven't been answered. It's that you don't like the answers.
 

janimal

Member
Answers to your questions - as simply put as possible.
**1. can I appeal this determination successfully;
- Probably not. You can certainly try, but from the sounds of things, if I were making the determination (and I have 12 years experience in this area) you don't have much of a shot. But stranger things have happened.

**2. what legal ground do I have for the appeal,
- None that I gather from your post. It is does not appear that any illegal action was taken by the employer. it might be unfair in your eyes, but unfair is not the same is being illegal.

**3. how can I stop my company from doing what they usually do which is drag this on for years as they have done to former co-workers of mine.
- You can't. You don't have any control over how long the process takes. And, as mentioned by myself and other posters, you don't appear to have a very good chance of winning this. Sorry.

**I would also like some suggestions for legal representation as I am going to need it in this case.
- We can't do that. But with the facts as presented, I think it will be diffficult to find a decent attorney to take your case. You might find one who is willing to take your money though.

Best of luck to you. As mentioned in earlier posts, your best bet is to find other employment. It;s hard to believe that you have seriously sought other employment and remained unemployed for a full year.
 

mariner

Member
Did you think this was the place to find your answers?

To the OP. I came here looking for answers and got none. After searching the internet on my own, I was able to get my unemployment without a problem. The people here at this forum told me that I would probably not get unemployment and didn't have a case against my former employer.... WRONG!

Now, I am sure there are going to be alot of people here who are senior members who won't like my post. Well, then ban me. Their best buddy IAAL got into a lot of trouble over his/her posts. So, goes to say that you are not going to get the best legal advice here and by the way when it says "FREE ADVICE" that means you get what you paid for which is nada, zilch, zero advice....JMHO
 

Jfrancis

Junior Member
Answers

Well, out of curiosity I went back to these forums and I thought I would share my experiance from when I when I started this thread. I appealed the ruling to the impartial administrative law judge here in NY. The findings of my case were as follows:

I had failed six inspections according to the standards set by the company. Four are required for termination. The question brought up by the judge was why the company kept me aboard? this was not answered by the finding.

the employer had ever right to fire me, however the evidence presented by the company showed that all my failed inspections were due to diffrent factors in each inspection demonstrating that there were no "habitual" faults in my work that could show some deliberate or gross negligence on my part.

Finally, The six failed inspections did not meet the standerd of gross negligence or deliberate activity on my part; I had not done anything intentional that was contratry to the best intrests of my employer. Therefore none of my actions reached the level of "misconduct."

In NYS misconduct is defined as deliberate actions on my part or gross negligence. I was basicaly fired beause I was the slowest cog in the machine, not becasue I willed it.

I was awared benefits, and my employer's appeal was denied.
 

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