Unpaid Administrative Leave HELP

[Employee120375]

lay off (lack of work)
fired
quit
labor dispute
still working / part time
military discharge

 

[Beth3]

Then select layoff. It's not entirely accurate but clearly none of the others apply. You'll have a chance to explain your specific situation to the UC division down the road.

 

[Employee120375]

I would like to thank everyone in advance for there advice on this matter

 

[Beth3]

You're welcome. Hopefully everything will come out right in the end.

 

[commentator]

No, I respectfully disagree with Beth3 on this one. Do not file as laid off. Say you have been terminated, of the choices you presented. I would suggest you not try to file on the internet if you have any other alternative in your state such as telephone filing. You need to talk to a living human being in the unemployment system to file this claim. Try calling this number: For inquiries, including questions about Direct Deposit and Extended Benefits: (800) 244-5631 or (312) 793-5280; TTY (866) 322-8357

You were NOT laid off! You are supposedly terminated, or off work for over a week without pay, and possibly going to be terminated. This is a much more complicated issue claim, and the employer will have to be contacted. There will have to be a decision made on the issues.

Best case scenario, it would inspire the employer to get off the pot, so to speak, and make some sort of decision about whether to call you back to work or go on and terminate you.

You have the right to file for a week of unemployment benefits any time you are off work for as much as a week without pay. The employer either has to show they had a good reason to penalize you by putting you off work or let you draw the benefits uncontested. But hopefully, this will, as I said, motivate them to wrap up this investigation and put you back to work.

But if they are contacted by the unemployment system and they say no, absolutely not, you are NOT laid off due to lack of work, but that you are on administrative leave pending an investigation, you will get back a denied claim in a short time and you will have to re-do everything. It will be complicated. If you were to be approved immediately and receive any weekly benefits before they got this determination, you would be overpaid, and there would be a fraud issue.

I would suggest you not file on the internet and I really do not think you need to say you were laid off. Laid off has the implication in unemployment that you are out of work through no fault of your own, because they do not have enough work for you to do. It will look as though you are lying about the whole situation.

If possible, even if you have already filed this claim, get hold of someone in person, on the telephone filing system in your state. Call the unemployment technical assistance unit of unemployment. Many states do not do complicated issue claims over the internet, and if you try to file anything but a simple lack of work claim on line, it will greatly delay your ability to get a decision and begin getting unemployment benefits.

Whatever you do, do not say "screw it" and resign, quit, sign a letter of resignation or whatever. That will be taken as an acceptance or admittance of guilt of what you are being accused of. Make them fire you, if they are so inclined, and make them then prove to the unemployment system that they had a good documented misconduct reason to fire you. Else you will be able to get approved for unemployment benefits while seeking another job.

Yes, they can do it to you, yes they can fire you for it, even if it's untrue. But if they do, and you file an unemployment appeal, they will have to show what exactly sort of misconduct or policy violation you are accused of, and show pretty good proof that you did it, and that you knew and perhaps had been warned that you should not do it, and you chose to violate policy or do something that was misconduct. Else you will get approved for unemployment.

In any case, you need to file for benefits, and let the chips fall. Even if they re-instate you, you would have a claim set up and would have this one week filed for. Do not ever quit a job unless you have another good one to go to or a very good job related reason to quit, unless you don't want unemployment.

Warning, this whole thing, being approved for unemployment and everything it entails, will take a long time. It will, in the best possible case scenario, be six to eight weeks before you receive any weekly unemployment benefits.
As I said before, if you were to get whipped immediately onto the program because you filed as laid off, and paid some benefits before they made a decision, I'd be thinking I very well might have to pay them back later. So be prepared for that.

Unemployment isn't income maintenance, isn't based on your need or family situation. So you might want to apply for some other types of assistance while you are working all this out, unless they put you back to work soon.

 

[Employee120375]

Ok glad I read this now. I will contact UI directly and thank you very much for the time you took to explain it all.

 

[Beth3]

Commentator, I will bow to your superior knowledge on this topic.

 

[Silverplum]

The OP's other/simultaneous thread is here:
https://forum.freeadvice.com/civil-litigation-46/violation-privacy-confidentiality-545073.html

Just FYI.