by Mel
(California)
I work at Human Resource company that works for dairies and farms. We hire and fire employees for these dairies, do their write ups and also do workman’s comp for them. The reason I am wanting to quit is because they do a lot of illegal things. For example, half of the employee’s that work on these dairies are illegal immigrants. Our company knows that they have fake social security cards and Micas and they try to make sure that they look legit and if they don’t they tell them hey you might want to ask your fellow employee where they got their fake social security card and say, “but you didn’t hear it from me”.
Another example is workman’s comp our company has a contract with certain clinics and they try to keep most claims a direct bill, which means if they are issued medication they make sure that they distribute the medication there and not with a prescription because they want to try to have the owner of the dairy pay for the bill directly and keep it under the table so that it does not become an OSHA recordable and they dairies insurance premiums don’t go up. I know this is Illegal and one of the doctors at the clinics has told me that it was illegal and He is also going to go else where because he does not agree on what they do.
I just don’t feel right going to these visits and trying to rush these employees to be discharged from care right away just because the company I work for is trying to keep the claim under the table and to be honest I want nothing to do with it but can’t afford not to keep my job. So is this grounds for quitting a job?
Hi Mel,
I guess my question is, whether you can prove you’re being asked by your employer to commit illegal breaches of relevant employment laws .. which we all know, an employer should comply with.
Or, if you’re willing while you’re still an employee, to blow the proverbial whistle on the employer.
Now, for a little more opinion. There are lots of HR guidance outfits selling best practices and strategies, like this one that sound a bit sketchy, or at least ripe for corruption to set in. But that’s because I know from personal knowledge how my former employer used laws and precedent decisions to skirt actually stepping all over a law and by virtue, an employees rights when they don’t know how to fight back and make an employer sit up and take notice of what just one sharp employee can do to impact an organization’s bottom line.
Although I get why the problem you’re having is a moral one .. You are not telling me how you plan to go about proving your employer is doing things that are illegal .. or forcing you to do their bidding.
That, it seems to me is often the hitch in the git-a-long for many employees because you have to put yourself at risk to insure you have proof of an illegality, or at least proof of your exhaustive efforts (documented of course) to support good cause to quit without throwing legal stones.
Yes, even a lowly unemployment hearing requires employees to meet a certain standard of law through a preponderance of credible testimony and evidence.
And if I rarely answer “will I collect unemployment for this” with a definitive yes, or no .. why would reversing the question be any different when winning benefits is about surveying not only a burden, but the rebuttal of your opposition, for strengths and weaknesses in their case?
Chris