My friend is a customer service rep who is ready to retire. Her company is talking about layoffs with 13+ weeks of severance, but when she asked (anonymously) if they were accepting volunteers, they said no. In case she’s not one of the ones told to clean out her desk, what are the ways she could get terminated while preserving her ability to claim unemployment (which would equal the 13 weeks of severance)?
UPDATE: She took my advice and saw her doctor. He agreed that she’s experiencing a job-related stress injury, set her up with a Disability claim, and referred her for psychiatric counseling.
Start documenting all their OSHA violations lol.
Does lemmy have an unethical life pro tips community yet? You’d probably get better results if we did.
Funny thing is I see nothing unethical in this request. Companies have no ethics that are not enforced by laws, so it is not unethical for employees to adopt the same behaviour.
What’s unethical is the unemployment process.
I really don’t think there’s anything unethical about this. They’re going to be laying people off anyway; they may as well lay off someone it will hurt less.
Ask for a raise. Tell them there’s no retirement plans because of inflation now, and she can see herself staying there another 10 years.
They might not lay her off because they know she’ll retire soon anyways. Increase her cost of employment so it’s no longer cost effective to just wait it out.
I mentioned asking for a raise, but she countered that they would want her to jump ship.
Assuming this is in the US, be sure of your state’s unemployment laws. A lot of states say you are ineligible for unemployment if you are fired for cause, like attendance issues or failure to perform work duties.
It’s important to note that, barring something egregious, single instances don’t meet the with cause definition.
There has to be documented history that the issue was raised with you and addressed (verbal warnings, write ups etc.)
That depends on the state, OP’s friend should check before trying anything.
No, it doesn’t. A single occurrence of being late, or the first instance of being talked to about job performance does not meet the requirement of cause to deny you unemployment benefits.
An employer has to demonstrate repeated occurrences with documentation to be able to justify denying unemployment. Without that they can contest your claim but as soon as you appeal it they will be overruled unless they can show a repeated pattern with corrective action documentation.
This varies by location. I’ve been through it on both sides in a few states, and when working with an employment lawyer one of the most crucial things he said was to make sure the filing was in the beneficial state.
Easy. Email everyone in the company how much she makes.
Start an email chain about wages.
Open the handbook and start using/abusing the loopholes while pointing them out.And most importantly; do as little as possible while maintaining the job requirements as laid out in the listing.
just talk about unions in non union job and you will be gone fast
That’s not a legally fireable offense in the USA.
It’s not in Australia either but it definitely happens. Seen it personally. Nobody will become a union representative if they’ve seen the last 3 not have their contract renewed for unknown reasons.
That’s the goal here though. If she wants to collect unemployment getting fired without cause is the plan.
I thought the idea was to “get severance”. Which would be "it’s cheaper to pay severance than permit them to continue disturbing the workplace. Sounds like you’re trying to advocate doing something illegal.
Talk about starting a union?
That only works in the US. At my place they would aks if this new union is registered, so that they can help employees pay the union contributions tax-free.
And then you can sue.
This sounds promising. Just have to find what union would represent customer service reps.
