(OK Unemployment Benefits)
I live in Oklahoma and have worked at a job for over 25 years but they will be closing down on Dec 2. In preparation for a new future I have been proactive by getting my prereq. out of the way and have been excepted into nursing-RN. I would not have put in my application if I had known the business was prolonging the closure because being accepted into school is very competitive. During this time I have worked and maintained a 4.o average and have been accepted. Work has been horrible the last two months. My machine settings have been altered, implications of work skills underpar and then my dept. boss has accused me of stealing stuff from the dept. My work area has been compromised and just the daily talk and harassement have worn me down to the last straw and I have been to HR. and the plant manager. I think they have said something to my boss because the retribution has been hostile. I have photos but no witness as I am the only woman in the dept. and the two guys and my boss are close.
I have a phone appeal in ten days. How do I stand up for myself? Working there made me throw up constantly and I quit because the stress and false statements would affect my future job as a nurse.
Hi,
What, do you have photos of? Have you tried to subpoena relevant documents in your personnel file about your contacts with HR addressing these problems. What were the results of your complaints to HR?
Have you contacted a hearing rep to help you with this and make your argument at your unemployment hearing .. including a probing cross examination of the employer’s witnesses that may or may not be in attendance at your hearing?
People always ask me how do you win an unemployment appeal hearing, yet there is no way I alone would have the time to evaluate more complicated situations as deeply as I think would be needed to instruct you on how to go about winning without the help of a hearing rep.
I explain the reality that unemployment is legalistic in nature and that the majority of the unemployed are not equipped with the proper training and experience I honestly believe is necessary to win at even a lower level unemployment hearing when it’s usually based upon events that occurred leading up to the final event .. which is when one party or the other chose to end the employment for a good reason .. a bad reason .. or most often when it comes to employees and reason they cannot support with evidence.
Your situation is unique and although you quit, the testimony and any evidence supporting it must make clear whether given what was happening to you was actually happening to force you into the decision of quitting .. basically, so the employer wouldn’t be liable for any UI benefits.
It really comes down to who was acting reasonably and who wasn’t.
You mentioned some things which could have been damaging to the future of ability to become a licensed RN and that the allegations were false .. if you can prove that .. it should show the intent or what was motivating the employer to sabotage your employment with them before the “layoff”.
It’s a common practice to reduce a workforce before the actual reduction of a layoff which is an indefensible unemployment claim from the employer perspective. It’s a definite no win scenario for them.
If the employer’s allegations were false and ongoing .. it was already a contentious situation which you should have been documenting in some for or another. I know most people don’t see this kind of thing for what it is when it’s happening for the first time, but once bitten is a hard lesson not easily forgotten.
You might think you quit because of the throwing up and the false allegations that would affect your future, but for purposes of winning your unemployment appeal .. the argument you make places legitimate blame for the responsibility of this decision squarely on the shoulders of the employer because what they were doing was designed to force you into this choice with no other reasonable alternative available to you.
The way you stated it sounds more like avoidance of something I don’t know if you can substantiate with documentation or even argue effectively by forcing an employer witness to say something in cross to corroborate your testimony.
They might call unemployment hearings quasi legal, but I think that’s only because they are administrative hearings .. vs. court hearings.
One thing for sure .. an unemployment claim that begins as quasi legal can rise all the way up to what is definitely legal .. including the a state’s supreme court .. and beyond.
Where do you think precedents come from.
By the way, I removed your name as this will become a freely accessible web page to protect your privacy.
Chris