Unemployment compensation

[rebel111]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Washington
In Washington state would one be eligible for Unemployment if the employer eliminated her salaried position and offered her only a commissioned sales position and the employee quit rather than have a job with no guarantee of any income.

 

[asiny]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Washington
In Washington state would one be eligible for Unemployment if the employer eliminated her salaried position and offered her only a commissioned sales position and the employee quit rather than have a job with no guarantee of any income.

No. Washington is an at-will state- the employer could have just fired the employee and offered them nothing... instead the employee quit of their own accord.

 

[swalsh411]

Umm... maybe. More information is needed. What did you do in your salaried position? Sales? If yes then your quit was not good cause. If you were an HR manager, or janitor, or IT person, then maybe. You cannot refuse "suitable work". If you were already in sales you would need to give the new job at least a good faith effort. If you were fired for low sales, or made enough money to qualify for partial benefits, you would likely be eligible. We would need to know what you were doing in your salaried position.

 

[asiny]

Umm... maybe. More information is needed. What did you do in your salaried position? Sales? If yes then your quit was not good cause. If you were an HR manager, or janitor, or IT person, then maybe. You cannot refuse "suitable work". If you were already in sales you would need to give the new job at least a good faith effort. If you were fired for low sales, or made enough money to qualify for partial benefits, you would likely be eligible. We would need to know what you were doing in your salaried position.

To the OP- swalsh411 is quite right... based on your original post I read that you are already in a salaried sales position, which the company eliminated to opt for commission sales position.

I could easily be mistaken given that you did not give a lot of information in your initial post.

 

[davidmcbeth3]

One may argue that this is such a change in the contract that it is a termination.

Only one way to find out .. look at administrative & court rulings

 

[commentator]

Sorry, but no. The one way to find out is NOT to look at administrative and court rulings. For one thing, unemployment insurance is very private, individual cases and decisions are confidential, only when it goes into the civil court system does it become visible, therefore there are not a lot of court rulings and such out there to look at. And those are the rare and exceptional cases anyway. What you are describing is something dealt with in the regular system thousands of times a week.

So the cases you would find will very likely have nothing at all to do with your situation, will be from a variety of other states, which may be somewhat different from your own, and will not give you any definitive answers about your own individual situation, as we here cannot.

And you wouldn't have any use for them if you found them. You are not going to be going in and arguing for your approval for unemployment based on case law that you've found on the internet. Your approval decisions are going to be made by people within the state system who are already very familiar with the unemployment laws of your state and spend all their time working with it.

What you need to do, if you have already quit the job, is FILE A CLAIM in the state you are in, and let them work it out. It costs nothing, you have absolutely nothing to lose, and there is no down side to filing and having them give you a decision, two decisions actually if they deny the initial one.

However, I would strongly caution this OP. The answer is maybe, but not real likely, dependent on the individual circumstances. As everyone has pointed out, there must be a significant change in your job duties and pay rates, not just an adjustment. If you are already working in sales, and they have put you on commission rather than salary, but still selling the same product, this could very well be a common practice. (that deal where you sell vacuum cleaners comes to mind. After a few weeks or months on salary, when you have exhausted all your easy contacts and sold vacuum cleaners to all your friends and family who want to help you, they put you out on straight commission, and you are starved out, forced to quit. And no, as they know, you do not at this point get approved for unemployment insurance.)

And if you are still working there, and they have put you on commission, and you have continued to work, but are not making any money and are thinking about quitting, you need to know that quitting after having worked at the new job arrangement means that the job you are quitting is after you have already accepted the conditions of the new job and actually worked at it.

This means you knew it was going to be commission only, and did not quit before accepting it and trying it out. That lowers your chances of receiving approval for unemployment benefits significantly in any case.

If you are still working, try your best to keep the job till you find another one. You will be required to look for other work anyway, if you did happen to get approved for unemployment, and the chances are very slim that will happen.

If you've already quit, file a claim immediately. Even if they tell you no, you'll know for sure.

 

[Stephen1]

I disagree w/Commentor re: whether you should look at administrative & court rulings.

Here is my personal experience in Washington State. Applied for unemployment. Was denied and offered the opportunity for a hearing. In their letter they cited the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) they would be using to made the decision. We went to a major library (downtown Seattle) to read their copy of the RCW Annotated. The annotations provide multiple references to what the courts have found as acceptible and unacceptible reasons to grant unemployment compensation. We found several cases which mirrored mine. We went to the hearing and won.

Recommendation: Contact the state and find out what the section of the RCW is. Then look it up in the RCW Annotated at the library (can't do this on-line as the books are copyrighted). This will give you a feel for whether you have a chance or not. Just be honest when you compare your case to what the previous cases were.

 

[commentator]

Yes, the decision letter will tell you which section of the codes you are denied under if you are denied. You can ask for a hearing. But in this hearing, I strongly strongly advise the parties involved not to quote case law at the hearing officer. This is simply a matter of common sense. This person knows much more about these laws than you do. You do not need to tell them what the law is or what they should find.These hearings are not designed for professional lawyers to argue their cases. They are designed for laymen, who will be asked simple questions by the appeals officer, designed to bring out certain relevant information.

Unemployment hearings are not exactly like a court case in civil court. There are certain things that yes, you will be more likely to win if this is presented this way and that is presented that way. But very few people are able to read administrative law and figure out what the common processes and procedures are, how the hearing officers are going to look at the issues of the case, and get a feel for whether you have a chance or not.

If you have the time to go downtown to the big library and do this research and the energy to come up with this information, bravo. It sounds like you did a good job as a layman in coming up with ways to present your case and direct the information you provided and get a favorable decision.

And may I point out that you did this NOT after you had read the law and decided whether you'd be eligibile, but after you had done as I advised this OP and filed the claim, and were preparing for the hearing. Many people think they have to go in and file the claim ready to defend themselves and argue brilliantly and persuade the person taking the claim to approve them. This is not the case. First there is an initial decision, then there is an opportunity for either party to appeal the decision and a hearing at this point.

If this circumstances of this OP's case are as I suspect they are, if they did all this reading and looking up and researching, it would be all wasted effort. Because the claim will very likely be denied, and circumstances will not enable him/her to win in the appeal, even if they argue all night, (which they won't let you do.) A very cursory look at the case will be enough to tell someone with basic knowledge of the system whether it's worth the time to do all that exhaustive research. Why would you need a feel before you file and get a definite answer?