mrs.

[brownvickie22]

i was working at a small factory business that was family owned. my supervisor was actually the owners son. after my supervisor had found out that my husband and i were temperarily seperated he began asking me over to his place after work for drinks and telling very private details about certain parts of his body. even after i declined and informed him i was not interested in his advances he still made it a point to make his way over to my work station and make advances toward me. i informed a superviser in a different department about what was going on and she told me that i needed to record the conversations and turn him in. i had actually decided to do that very thing after multuple conversations about the situation with the other departments supervisor but before i was able to do so the situation had gotten worse and the advances were coming more frequent since the two other people in my department had gotten fired and quit before the situation took place. i felt that it would be better to get out of the situation immediately before it went too far and decided to go ahead and quit my job. every time that it had occured it made me feel very uncomfortable and edgy. i did not want to put myself through the shame that i had felt and did not feel comfortable going to the owners because it was their son who was making the advances and knew from other occurances that they would do what they could to cover up the situation since i did not have any proof. i got denied for unemployeement because i did not turn it in so i appealed it. i want tho know what my chances are and how i can check on the progress of mu appeal.

[commentator]

Okay, you went through all this, and then you went ahead and quit. And because you voluntarily quit, before you had taken all the steps possible for you to resolve this situation, you have been denied your unemployment insurance, right? You want to know what your chances are of being approved for benefits on appeal.

Aside from unemployment, this is a situation where I would advise you to speak an attorney, and work on the sexual harrassment aspect of this case. This person did create a hostile working environment for you and ultimately deprive you of your job.

Going ahead and quitting, however, was probably unwise on your part. If the company owners had fired you, you'd have had some excellent chances to claim sexual harrassment and to receive your unemployment benefits. You might have gotten some really concrete proof of his behavior to take out with you.

As for unemployment insurance, when you quit a job, you have to prove that you had a good business related reason to quit the job. The next question after that is "What steps did you take to try to resolve this problem before you quit?"

On the good side, you did discuss this situation with your other supervisor, but then you did not follow their instructions and suggestions. You left.

You did not speak to the company owners and ask them to resolve the problem. We assume you did tell the guilty supervisor in very clear terms to leave you alone, and you did make notes of each occasion when something inappropriate was said or done and that you did tell him he was not to say this again, that you were not interested in going with him, and that you would tell someone if he continued this behavior. Be ready to list each of these occasions at your appeal hearing. If you don't have proof, that's okay, but try to decide on a date when you believe each of the events happened, instead of just saying, "Several times, he...."

Be very specific about what he said and did. Okay this may be embarrassing, but if he said, "You look good today baby," that is a little different from advertising his measurements or something. You've got to say specifically what he was saying and doing. Because of course his defense is that he didn't say anything very bad and you took it wrong.

All you can do in the hearing is say that you were harrassed on this and this and this occasion, make sure you say that you told him his advances were unwelcome, say that you discussed the problem with your other supervisor. Then talk about how the other employees he supervised had quit. (In fact, you may want to ask one of them to be with you to the phone hearing, to testify to what she has seen or heard, or you might ask one of the employees who has left to give you a statement.) Say that you did not feel safe in the environment. Say that you did not feel that the company owners would support you or help you stop the behavior, since it was their son. If you have seen things like this happen before during your tenure there as an employee, you may want to mention this.

Do not say something like, "Well, I figured I just might as well quit, because I thought that was better than getting fired," which would open another can of worms here. Do not say you quit because your nerves were shot, unless you can produce a doctor's statement saying you were suffering health difficulties related to this situation. Make sure you emphasize that the only reason you were forced to quit this job was because of the sexual harrassment, and that working there was impossible to continue, that you did not want to lose the job, you wanted this behavior to stop and you gave it the opportunity to stop and nothing happened. Okay, really, you didn't give it too much opportunity, but we sort of have to claim it.