by angela hernandez
(des moines iowa usa)
I told my former supervisor a month and a half in advance that in august i had to change my schedule due to my daughter starting school but my former supervisor was fired two weeks later then the new supervisor comes in and makes up the august schedule and i tell her aug. first that i cant work the same hours starting aug 26th but she keeps me on the schedule anyway. so i am calling in and she tells me i need to find coverage for all those shifts remaining from august 26 to aug 31. if i can not and i get fired can i get unemployment//iowa. i have already missed three days and i am only casual so only actually required to work 8 hours per month but have been scheduled for full time hours all july and august.
Hi Angela,
Well …. it depends. Each situation and the facts and details are looked at separately.
It’s going to depend on why you had to change your schedule due to your daughter and school and what efforts you have made to work out the conflict the schedule is presenting.
It’s perfectly alright for an employer to say no they can’t change your schedule, but if your reason for requesting the change can be proven to be needed because you sought all other possible alternatives and came up empty handed with a way to continue in the employment and you presented this information to the employer and made a reasonable request of the employer to help you keep from being fired .. it may be found you were not fired with good cause.
You’re an at-will employee. They can fire you for any reason or whim they choose, be it good, bad, or indifferent, with the exception of an illegal reason. And it’s also possible you could be denied unemployment for any of their reasons .. unless you can show you made every effort to comply with the employer and they refused to listen to “REASON”.
If it is your intention to do nothing to comply with the employer’s request and simply expect them to meet your demand for a schedule change then it’s very doubtful you will be able to get benefits.
Employment is often a chess game. They try to do everything possible to make sure you are fired with good cause. They may not even know that’s what they are doing. Some rarely think beyond “I’m the boss and what I say goes”. And this is true too.
You need to do everything possible to show that you tried to keep the job and the reason you were fired was due to reasons beyond your control. If this sounds like you might have to eat some humble pie under circumstances .. you got it.
Each situation is different and may call for specific strategies for making sure the state sees it your way too.
It takes effort to protect your employment and it take effort to optimize your chances to get unemployment benefits.
I wonder if you will even be monetarily eligible .. considering you are a casual employee only required to work 8 hours a month.