got fired will i be able to collect un-employment

[ad356]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY
i am wondering if i am going to be able to collect unemployment benefits. my former boss told me i would be able to collect benefits and that they do not plan on contesting it. here is the story of how i got fired. i worked in a milk plant. when i was hired i was not informed that they had a "tobacoo" policy OR had any intention of having a policy. after 3 months of working there i was told i could no longer "vape (use an ecigarette") outside. i was told to go to my car. OK i went to my car for 6 months no problems. after 6 months they decided that they did not want me vaping on the property, they also said some ridiculous things to me including that i should seek nicotine addiction consoling. OK so i left during lunch and went off site. i was frequently left by myself at this facility, everyone else went home leaving me by myself to deal with the dangers of working in such a facility by myself. i continued to go to my car and vape with no one there. yes i know i broke and absurd policy and eventually got caught. i was caught by the quality woman who once came back after hours and caught me in the act. we were given this policy in an electronic form (never in writing) but i do not believe that it stated being caught in violation of said policy was instant termination. i had no prior offenses or warnings of violation of the policy. when i was being terminated i was told that i would be able to collect and that they were going to allow it. am i going to have a problem?

furthermore i was Harassed by these people the entire time i worked there. i had the general manager tell me he did not like what i was eating and drinking during lunch breaks and it contained too much sugar. the beverage in question was a lipton iced tea. he did this several times until i told my boss that he needed to mind his own business. he apologized and the behavior stopped, i think he knew he was well out of line. being told that i need to seek nicotine addiction consoling was also Harassing and intimidating. i was threatened and treated very poorly by these people.

i really dont even care i was fired, considering the verbal and mental abuse i had to put up with. being that they told me they will not fight un-employment, does that mean that i will receive benefits? i just want to have complete closure of this chapter of my life, use the money to bridge the gap and find another job. if they are lying to me and contest it anyways, does it matter that this was my first violation on record and they did not follow a disciplinary routine or issue a warning before termination? this facility is run so poorly there is no plant H.R. which would have dealt with such matter. its really only controlled by my boss and the general manager. they were also singling me out and told me since i had to leave i was no longer going to get paid for lunch, while everyone else did get paid for lunch. they were trying to make my life uncomfortable to the point to quitting vaping, not really their concern. this is a legal subtance which does not effect my job performance, and i was only doing it on my evening break. yeah i broke policy but they also were treating me like garbage.

so am i going to get benefits or am i screwed?

 

[cbg]

You have two choices.

You can apply for unemployment, or you can not apply for unemployment.

If you apply for unemployment, you might be approved and you might not.

If you don't apply for unemployment, you definitely won't be approved.

There is no penalty for being wrong and applying if you don't qualify. It costs nothing but a little time. The worst that can happen is that they say no, in which case you are no worse off than if you never applied in the first place.

Sounds like a no brainer to me.

 

[ad356]

i understand that, its just that i applied a week ago and still have not heard anything from NY yet. i was just wondering if they said i will get it and they follow to their word does that mean that i will get it? or does no one have any idea?

 

[cbg]

Your employer does not have the power to grant or deny benefits. The state, and only the state, makes that decision. The employer can decide to contest, or they can decide not to contest, but the state does not make their decision based solely on what the employer says. Essentially you tell your story, the employer tells theirs, and the ALJ decides which story they like best.

It is by no means unheard of for it to take longer than a week. In my state, which admittedly is not yours, a perfectly clean claim which is submitted perfectly the first time, in which there is no question that the employee will qualify and which the employer is not contesting, will take a minimum of three weeks to be approved. It's far too early to panic.

There is a responder here by the name of commentator. Listen to her. She has more than 30 years direct experience with unemployment claims. There is also a responder here by the name of chyvan. Chyvan once found a hat and thinks that makes him a cowboy. Pay attention to him at your peril. Chyvan will insist that his advice has always gotten the employee approved. My counter will be that first, very few people actually come back and say what happened so the fact that no one has come back and said, "chyvan, you jerk" is not proof that they were approved, and second, even if they were approved we can't know if it was because of chyvan's advice or in spite of it.

 

[ad356]

i also openly admitted i was fired for "misconduct" when i got fired when i filed the form out online, but i also stated that i was fired for the first offense and no warning were issued with no appeal to keep my job. does this help or hurt my case. should i have admitted fault?

sorry for all of this, but this is the first time i have been fired. i have a strong work ethetic, and attendance. i worked here for 2 years nearly, it was the worst experience of my life. i do not like the experience of getting fired and having to collect un-employment. i wished they never hired me in the first place..... i had a job at the time but it was 3rd shift and it was burning me out. the job i went to was on first shift. had i known they were going to treat me so badly i would not have left my last job.

 

[Chyvan]

Chyvan will insist that his advice has always gotten the employee approved.

Never said that, but I certainly know how to stack the deck and it's "her."

i also openly admitted i was fired for "misconduct" when i got fired when i filed the form out online

Your employer saying they won't contest is no guarantee because they could be lying.

UI works with the story that you and your employer tell, and your story can get you disqualified all by itself, and it wouldn't matter if your employer contested or not. You can't write on your UI application, "I didn't steal that pack of cigarettes. I was going to pay for them when my boyfriend picked me up after work when he brought me my purse," and expect to get UI because it just sounds bad.

You're not required to spill your guts on your UI application. You only have to say you were "fired," and let your employer make the case for misconduct if they are so inclined.

Even if you say nothing more than "fired" and your employer sells you down the river and does contest, and it results in a denial, you can still appeal, and hope that the employer is a no show at your hearing or sends the wrong witness(es) to your hearing. However, once you confess, it's a real problem trying to fight your own words.

 

[commentator]

Unemployment insurance is based on whether or not you were terminated for a valid work related misconduct reason. Not how bad you need it, how poor you are, or whether you have ever tried to get it or been terminated before now.

The employer either did or did not have this valid misconduct reason. The whole object of the unemployment system is to get you paid the claim if you have monetary eligibility and you are out of work through no fault of your own or to not give you the benefits if you are out of work through your own fault.

The employer wanted you off their grounds. They said "Go away and we won't contest your unemployment claim." However, unless they totally lie and say they have laid you off because of lack of work, absolutely not your fault, the unemployment system will always explore the reason you were laid off. Frankly, even if you had put NO reason for your termination, as was recommended, I don't see as there would be a way to stack the deck and get your unemployment approved easily.

Because if you had completely lied and said "I was laid off due to lack of work" the employer would've totally had to agree with that for it to fly. Actually lying about the reason somebody left their company (whom they probably did not just love anyhow) is a little different than just "not fighting" the claim's approval. And if it had come out that you put "lack of work" and they said you were fired, and that was shown, you'd have been committing fraud to attempt to receive benefits. If you'd put no reason down, they'd have gone into the whys and wherefores, and at some point in the process you either have to start lying to them or start telling them the truth.

I do not know if this is a "mom and pop" situation, or if there is a corporate anywhere. If there is, you can bet they won't want you to be approved to draw unemployment. Mom and pop operations sometimes don't understand how unemployment insurance costs them money. They'll go so far as to lay employees off sometimes for lack of work just because they want to get rid of a troublemaker. But I do know that if you are terminated, with warnings, they are not likely to say, "Oh yeah, we laid her off due to lack of work" because anytime anyone draws unemployment from their company, this costs the employer money. It's not a government paid benefit, doesn't come out of your paychecks, they are paying for it through their payroll taxes.

Since you said you were terminated for misconduct, the unemployment system will take it over from here and investigate the misconduct before granting you benefits/not granting you benefits. They'll ask what the reason was, what the company's policies were, and did you know that you were violating the company's policies. If you've had even one warning that you should stop, that you have violated the policy knowingly and deliberately, knowing that your doing so might reasonably lead to your being fired, that is sort of disqualifying for a favorable unemployment decision.

That the company was a lousy place to work, that you did not like their attitude or that they were not good to you in many other ways does not mean you have the right to violate their no smoking policies. When you began to work there, you agreed to their policies by accepting the job. Even if they were unreasonable and arbitrary, they have every right to make policies, inform their workers of the policies, and if the worker violates them, they can reasonably be fired. And not be approved for unemployment benefits.

You don't get unemployment benefits for any other reason than being out of work through no fault of your own. If you are denied benefits in this initial decision, which can take up to six or eight weeks, then you have the right to appeal for a second decision, after a hearing where you and the employer are both asked to be present. EVEN IF THE EMPLOYER DOES NOT SHOW UP, you can be denied based on your sworn testimony. If you lie, you are committing unemployment fraud. You don't want to do this. So you'll be telling them the same thing you have told us here. Yeah, I broke policy (which I did know about) but they treated me like garbage. That's your truth and what you must rest on.

Employers tend to prefer that employees quit, because that way there is very little chance of their being approved for unemployment benefits (which, I reiterate, cost them money) and it is perfectly legal in our country for them to nag you, talk mean to you, treat you unfairly, not give you the same benefits as other workers, etc. They can even nag you about your nicotine/sugar eating habits. They aren't "out of line" for doing this in a legal workplace way. Your choice is to stay and put up with it or quit and find a better job. The best thing you could've done would be to find another job and then quit and go to it. That will probably be your best choice right now.

Of course it goes without saying that it is never a good idea when looking for another job to spend any time at all trashing the former job. Hopefully they will only give you a reference saying you worked there from such and such date to such and such date. Move on quickly, in interviews, skim over details about how you did this and they did that.

My experience has been that heavy smokers need it bad, and they will tend to make their addiction a priority far above getting the work done, and they tend to take way too many breaks to get out to their smokes if at all possible. This just doesn't usually make them good employment prospects. I have seen people jump in their cars at break time and drive a half mile from the place of work to get in their smokes. I have seen hundreds of people fired for violating their workplaces smoking policies and usually this means they don't get to draw benefits, because most of the time, the company's policies have been clearly stated to them and they were fully aware.

You were not well treated at work. It was a lousy place to work. You also violated the no smoking policy to the point you were caught, and they terminated you. It doesn't seem likely that unemployment approval will happen from what I am reading here, though if you continue through the process, the employer does NOT provide any feedback either way about your termination, and you can convince them that you were oblivious to the fact that you were not supposed to do what you did, that you had no idea about the policy or that you were not given adequate warnings that you would be fired if you violated the policy, you may be approved.

Dealing with them from now on, use a little less detail about how awful the workplace was in general and unkind stupid things they said to you and how awful you were treated. Deal only with how many warnings you had received, how the policy was changed, etc.

 

[ad356]

i do not believe they ever went into the consequences of violating this stupid policy, nor was i ever given a written or verbal warning..... rest assured they have absolutely NO paper trail of disciplinary any action regarding this issue.