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Many people where I work are fired for incompetence or personality conflicts and will apply for unemployment insurance. Effective this year senior management has decided that we will contest all ex employees applications for unemployment benefits unless they were laid off due to economic issues or the position was eliminated.
Previously we did contest unemployment claims where the employee was fired for gross misconduct but now we are going to claim that incompetence and personality conflicts are in fact gross misconduct because we tried to get them to work effectively with their manager and perform their job functions more efficiently but they would not.
What do you think? Is this unfair or just business?
It's your employer's right under the law. Statistically speaking, it's a valid strategy. The employer will win some and lose some. With each loss and win, they will be able to tailor their agruments to practically ensure a win each time. Also, many unemployed individuals either don't file appeals, file them late, or don't have the talent to present an argument that would cast doubt as to whether misconduct was involved.
Also, sometimes the state does the work for the employer. In my own case, I was in appeals for 11 months. The employer was silent other than to say, "he voluntarily quit." The state did the work of cherry picking the regulations to deny me. Only by knowing my rights, was I able to work my way through the system.
Based on my own experience, an employer doesn't even have to lay anyone off. Just cut the employee's hours to reduce the earnings down to the calculated benefit amount so they are in a sense working for free and eliminate fringe benefits because they are no longer full-time. If the employee stays, then they agreed to the change and are barred from unemployment if they later quit. If they quit, they'll be tied up in appeals and still won't collect unless they have the resources to see it through.
Businesses and employers alike need to be put under laws and regulations that prevent this from even being an issue, especially the whole misconduct thing, I worked for Walmart for a month and got terminated for "misconduct" when a jack handle fell over, (FELL OVER NOW) and tapped someone on the hand, there we are in the store getting cuts, bruises, and I even got hit in the leg by a fork from the fork lift, left a bruise, none of us ever reports things like that which supposedly is required by walmart.
But I can imagine the malarkey that would occur if I worked longer in order to qualify for unemployment.
It seems like since nothing can be done against walmart for such stupidity on their part more than mine, you begin to wonder if employees and us in general even have rights at all.
Especially if employer is going to contest every claim, where is the employees rights? Its just non existent.
Senior Management at my company assume that if someone has a road block put up to collect jobless benefits they will not have the savings to wait through months of appeals and just give up and accept a low wage job that pays even less than the jobless benefit amount. It is cruel in my eye if the reason for termination is a personality conflict and the employee tried hard to get along with an impossible boss but failed at the end.
Your employer's analyis is spot on. However, now that you know their strategy, you have to counter it by banking rolling enough money, having good credit, and lots of available credit so that you can finance your way through the appeals process. Also, you need to be saving all complimentary documentation so that if they try to allege "misconduct," you'll have proof it's not that simple.
I wonder how the OP knows that these people are being fired for incompetence or personality conflicts. I wonder if he or she was snooping through files during his or her time as a "weekend traveler."
Senior Management at my company assume that if someone has a road block put up to collect jobless benefits they will not have the savings to wait through months of appeals and just give up and accept a low wage job that pays even less than the jobless benefit amount. It is cruel in my eye if the reason for termination is a personality conflict and the employee tried hard to get along with an impossible boss but failed at the end.
The problem is that the person who was terminated but tried and failed is in the same bucket as the person who doesn't care. Unfortunately as everything goes, a few bad people ruin it for everyone. They can't pick and choose so they have to contest them all. (That aren't lay off/position elimination related). Is it fair, no way. But one rotten apple ruins the bunch. (They ruin the casual days too btw)
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