• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

getting forced out

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

tseils

Junior Member
i live in wisconsin and been at my job for over 7 years. now after 7 years with out warning my hours are cut from 40 a week to 10 a week. my employer told me take the hours becuse we are not going to pay your unemployment. in outher words thay offer me work if i refuse thay want me to quit. or force me out. on top of that. thay are hiring someone of the street to do my job. so its not like thay are running out of work.
 


commentator

Senior Member
If you have not yet been cut to 10 hours, before the first week you are sure your job has been cut to ten hours, or that is what you are scheduled, and do not go to work. Instead, file for your unemployment benefits that day, saying you quit because your hours were deliberately reduced from 40 to 10 hours a week to keep you from drawing unemployment and force you to quit.

Or you can work the ten hours, and then go on and file for unemployment benefits for the week anyway. If you made less in gross wages than your unemployment weekly claim would set up for, you can draw some unemployment while working the 10 hours as long as the company verifies that is all the hours they have available for you. And they pretty much have to do that, since that's what they're giving you.

Above all, DO NOT quit this job except if you can do it when you were informed, but before the hours are actually cut. If the cut has already been begun, keep working but file for benefits anyway. Be sure you mention if your benefits are taken away in the hourly cuts, whether or not they have done this businesss-wide or whether it is retaliatory and directed specificially toward you.
 

pattytx

Senior Member
Wait a minute. Don't go to work? Huh? Are you saying that the OP should quit rather than accept the decrease hours and that such a reason for quitting will qualify him for UI? I'm not getting the logic here.

You should be eligible for partial benefits.
 
Last edited:

swalsh411

Senior Member
I'm a little confused on commentator's advice as well. I'm not saying I think he's wrong (I definitely give him the benefit of the doubt) but that sounds a little odd to me.
 

Beth3

Senior Member
Commentator is the queen of all things unemployment but in this case, I have to respectfully disagree. Refusing to work the hours offered would quite likely result in the denial of all UC benefits. Working the ten hours would result in the OP being eligible for a partial UC benefit.

Commentator, if I'm wrong about quitting, please elucidate us. :)
 

commentator

Senior Member
A person is working 40 hours a week, with benefits and has been there several years. The company basically tells him, "As of today,we are cutting your hours to ten, which means you receive no benefits. We are getting rid of you." They have hired someone else to do his work, which indicates they are pretty much fully expecting him to leave. This move has nothing to do with the whole financial situation of the company, which is otherwise stable, no one else is being reduced. This is an out and out attempt to force a quit and keep the person from receiving unemployment benefits, which is quite a common dodge used by employers, by the way. "Take the hours because we are not going to pay you unemployment" I think was the way the person said they spoke it.

I have many times seen people quit at this point, before agreeing to the reduced hours, and yes, they did get to draw unemployment. If the reduction in hours is an obvious effort to get rid of this employee, through no fault of their own, it can certainly be an approved claim. As we tell people all the time here, the employer does not get to say whether or not they pay you unemployment. If they cannot come up with a good misconduct reason to terminate you, and they wish to get rid of you, forcing the job into something very unacceptable, so miserable that you'll have to quit it is NOT a legitimate way to do it

In cases where one is offered a dramatically changed work location or hours or schedule or pay rate, accepting the change and working at it for a period of time before quitting because you find it unacceptable is the thing that will more likely keep you from drawing. It is frequently wiser to just say, "No, thank you" and leave before accepting this change.

If the person does work the hours and also files for unemployment, probably the most immediate result in this situation by my guess will be that as soon as they are contacted by the unemployment office to verify that the person is working all the hours they have available for him, the company will at this point fire the employee. Or try to claim something else to keep him from drawing.

Intent is somewhat a factor here. A struggling employer who has 10 hours of work a week for an employee due to their business situation is someone that the employee should try to accomodate by working all the hours they have available and filing for partial unemployment. A company that is trying to give you the boot by dramatically changing your job so you'll have to quit is another thing entirely.
 

tseils

Junior Member
thank you for your advice. i want to say that reading the last part of your post this is not a struggling company. its one person that was put in a
GM position that dislikes me. personally i think its a bunch of BS .....:mad: i would think its some form of harassment. is it some thing that could be illegal ?
 

pattytx

Senior Member
If it were me, I wouldn't want to take the chance that the state would decide not to see it my way, therefore having no job at all (not even 10 hours per week and partial UI benefits) AND no benefits

OP, quitting because of a reduction in hours and benefits, IS a risk, one way or the other. Just so you know, there is no iron-clad guarantee that, should you quit because of this, you would receive benefits. Some people may be financially able to take that risk, but I don't know any.


And this is nowhere near illegal harrassment.
 

commentator

Senior Member
No form of harrassment here except that they are very likely trying to do what is called "force a quit," and that's not illegal. You cannot sue, complain to the labor board or the bureau fo fairness, etc. The only thing to do is be looking very hard for another job. It's probably a better idea not to quit as long as you're getting 10 hours at your same job.

It may be reasonable to try to work with the company if they give you only 10 hours at the same job you have had, going ahead and filing for your unemployment while still working due to the reduction in hours. As I said, I strongly suspect that once you file for unemployment still working, this will be followed by another move on their part. If it's "hit the road, you're outta here!" take it and go quickly and quietly. As I said, unemployment is the only recourse if you are approved for it. Pursue your claim that you have already opened, now a dismissal instead of a reduction of hours.

Do not ever think it's better to quit than be fired, so that if they say you're being fired, don't announce, "You so and so's can't fire me, I quit!!" That does not "look better on your reference" or give you any leverage at all in unemployment, because it would probably be determined to be a quit by your choice. When that happens, the burden of proof that you had a valid job related reason to quit is on the claimant's plate. If you've been fired, the burden of proof to keep you from drawing unemployment is the job of the employer, who must have a good job related misconduct reason to fire. This just can't be something like the boss didn't like me. They can legally fire you for this reason, but if they don't have a documented evidence of some misconduct, they can't keep you from receiving unemployment.

But if they change your job location, slash your pay rate, or change your job description dramatically ( you used to be a design engineer, they are now giving you 10 hours a week as a machine operator) then I reiterate my advice not accept or to even work a minute of the newly structured job if you're going to find it too unacceptable and quit before you have another job.

Yes it is a chance that you will quit the job and not be approved for benefits. But for general unemployment purposes, acceptance of the new job, transfer, etc. is considered a (non binding, unstated)contract, and when you quit it, they'll find less reason to see it for you because you knew what the conditions were when you accepted it.
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top