As an employee, it can be easy to forget in that moment we begin to think we may be fired, or we overreact to quit a job on impulse, that it’s federal labor laws that provide us with our minimal protections of employee rights.
If I’m personally passionate about anything connected to unemployment benefits, it’s promoting the idea we have a responsibility to ourselves and one another to exercise our rights in the workplace.
Besides exercising can be argued to be one of our exhaustive efforts to preserve our employment, or to protect ourselves from an employer out to get us by constructing the circumstances to terminate, or get us to quit without the ability to prove fault attributable to the employer.
Understanding I believe it is exercising our right to not just complain, but to document our efforts in any form that helps us prove, or rebut fault, after a job has ended, despite the fact, the United States still adheres to a doctrine called employment at will.
Unemployment insurance benefits to me, are often relevant to how public policy exceptions work state by state and under the guise of a questionable and often unfair doctrine that ignores the inherent imbalance of power when an employment relationship ends, so the question becomes ..
Why would you not make use of the power in our workplace rights, to give yourself and edge when it comes to the burden you either need to prove, or rebut to collect unemployment benefits.
Not ironically, some legal scholars have said the At-Will Employment Doctrine was based on legal fictions, at least way back in 1877 when it ended up being used by a pro-employer judiciary.
Not funny to me because my experience coordinating unemployment hearings, often had me explaining a hearing decision by labeling a state as being generally pro-employer, or a lot less often, pro-claimant.
And Example of Employee Rights Not Connected to Good Cause to Quit
Further, an individual is generally expected to pursue all other available options before deciding to quit employment. For example, in Peters v. Administrator (Jan. 18, 1994), Franklin CP No. 92 CVD-11-9221, unreported, the claimant quit employment because he was not paid overtime wages owed and because of an unsafe working condition.
The court held that claimant quit without just cause because the claimant had not complained strongly about the unpaid overtime, had not complained to OSHA about the unsafe working condition, and therefore, had not pursued other available options before deciding to quit.
Source: Ohio Unemployment Law Abstract
Of course there’s other employment laws other than the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) which explains things such as overtime pay, or what the difference is between an exempt and non-exempt employee, or OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).
But here’s the thing .. whatever the name of the federal agency administering one, or more of our employee rights, allows us to exercise our right to file an official complaint, if that is what you need to do .. to resolve a problem, or conflict at work associated with a federal labor law .. your employer won’t resolve to remain compliant with a law.
Talking About Work
To discuss unemployment insurance benefits objectively, one can’t avoid talking about the experience of work and what happened there that led to just one individual’s separation at a time.
The fact is, it’s people who choose to quit a job and fire an employee for what may of seemed like good cause at the time, but afterwards, can’t prove to a standard of law they met the burden of having good cause.
These posts are related to how at-will employment works before unemployment benefits become the issue.
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