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how to win an unemployment appeal in Arkansas

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wenspen

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Arkansas

I was terminated with the excuse of "its not working", I have been at this company for 7 years and was at the position of Administrative Director for 3 years. During that time I had 1 write up approx 6 months before I was terminated. In their denial to pay my unemployment they stated that I had violated company policy regarding dress code and computer policy they had NEVER written me up for these things. The write-up was for having personal relationships with parents and staff. I need to know what my best line of defense is to win my appeal. The person that was my immediate supervisor has had issues with me since the owner of the company offered me the position. There were 1 facilities and she gave me different standards than the other Director. I did bring this to the attention of the owner and she assured me that it was "a personality conflict". I need to know what my best approach would be to win the appeal I filed, they do a phone hearing with both parties. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!
 


commentator

Senior Member
You will be the first speaker, since you are the one who is appealing the decision. What you need to do is a good summation of the information you have given us. Once they have selected a reason for the termination, the appeal deals ONLY with these issues. The "shotgun" method of terminating an employee (bringing up many issues) is usually not successful in keeping them from receiving benefits as the employer must prove that there was actualy misconduct, that the employee was given the opportunity to change the behavior and save the job, and that by choice, the person refused to do so. That is not so easy if there is not a progressive discipline trail for this particular issue.

What you will say is that you have worked there for x number of months or years. You may mention that you seemed to have a personality clash with your supervisor, and detail the efforts that you have made to resolve the disharmony between the two of you and what was said.

Then go into when you were terminated, exactly what was said to you at the time of termination. Do mention that absolutely no mention was made of your dress code violations or that you had misused the computer. Mention that you have never been warned or have never received any write ups about either of these two issues. You may want to mention that you did receive one write up (mention what it was for). Say that if you had been aware that these two areas were a problem, that you would have done what was necessary to correct the problems, but that you were not informed or given any warning or opportunity to save your job.

This is the tack I would take. As has been said, tell the truth, stick to the facts, do not wander off into other issues that were not mentioned in the unemployment denial even though you believe these were the real reasons for your termination.

We hope that they do not have an ironclad computer use policy in their handbook which you have violated and they have documentation of. If so, that could be construed as actual gross misconduct. But if there was a very general computer use policy, and your use of the computer was casual and about the same as all the other employees, this probably will not work as well to terminate you.

Same with dress code. If the dress code said "No jeans!" and you wore jeans repeatedly even after being warned, that could be a good reason to terminate. If you were not "neat and professional" enough, that's really vague.
But stick with these issues as they are what the hearing officer will ask about and what the decision will be based on.

Be sure to continue your weekly certifications until the hearing, so that you can be back paid if you are approved.
 

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