Afew years ago at the big auto companies in Detroit ,we were informed we had to train Indian and Japanese workers in our jobs. It was made clear that refusing to do so would result in termination and fighting unemployment and any other monies.
Everybody knew the outcome of what we were expected to do. It was a blow to morale and became depressing to be there. Try fighting corporate lawyers.
Because companies don’t hire employees as a “favor.” He was going to quit, but once the arrangements were made that he could work from home he didn’t quit. He was “let go” and not for cause.
That’s how I’d read the story, anyway.
No. His six month contract extension ended after the agreed upon six months.
The company saying they want you to stay on for another year or six months is not the same thing as entering into a contract.
And, if it was a contract, see Gfactor’s cite.
Small companies have been mentioned, but I can also see why large companies would fight. A chain store may have only two or three claims per year at a particular store, but multiply that by hundreds of locations and the premiums add up.
The first time I applied for (and received) unemployment, I had been fired by a chain retail store. This was around 1990. It went like this:
I was working about 30 hours/week in a particular department in the store. I also had a part-time restaurant job on the side. My boss at the restaurant always scheduled me around my hours at the retail job. This was easy because I had a fixed, regular schedule at the retail job.
When the Christmas shopping season started up, my hours were dramatically increased at the retail job, and my boss at the restaurant adjusted my hours around my new schedule.
As the end of the Christmas season approached, I queried my department manager and the store’s assistant manager as to whether my schedule would be returning to the previous fixed schedule. Both replied affirmatively, and I passed this information on to my boss at the restaurant. He scheduled me accordingly.
So one day I got off work at the restaurant, on what should have been my day off at the retail store. I stopped by the store to check my schedule, and discovered, much to my surprise, that I was supposed to have been at work there two hours earlier. It seems they had not given me my normal, pre-Christmas schedule. And so they fired me.
I filed for unemployment and received one check before finding a new job. The retail store appealed my claim, and so we had a telephone hearing with a judge.
I explained what had happened with the schedule, while the assistant manager claimed to have never told me that I would be getting my old schedule back. The judge believed me.
So the assistant manager brought up some previous “incidents” that allegedly showed I was a poor worker anyway. Both were documented in writing. In one incident, a customer had complained about “the young man” in my department who chose to keep stocking shelves instead of coming to help her, even after being paged. There were only four people in my department - two men and two women; the other man was the department manager. I pointed out that the complainer didn’t identify me by name or appearance - simply as “the young man”. The department manager was perhaps ten years older than me. As the age of the complainer wasn’t documented, I pointed out that, if she was older, she could reasonably have identified either of us as “the young man”. I also pointed out that the behavior indicated in the complaint - not responding when paged - was something that the department manager was notorious for. The judge agreed that there was no proof that I was the guilty party in that case.
So the asst. mgr. described an incident in which I allegedly refused to help another customer. I told my side of that story: It was twenty minutes after closing time. I was responsible for a bit of paperwork at the end of my shift, and I was doing this paperwork on the counter. My cash drawer was on the counter, where I was counting it, along with the other stuff I was dealing with. A lady showed up at my counter, asking me to retrieve some merchandise from a high shelf. I assumed that the shift supervisor had forgotten to lock the doors quickly enough, and this woman had slipped in. Because I would need to put away my cash drawer and paperwork before I could help her, I directed her to the shift supervisor, who I said could help her more quickly. As it turned out, it was the supervisor who had unlocked the front door to let this woman in, twenty minutes after we closed and had sent her to me for assistance. The judge thought my handling of events was reasonable.
So the judge backed me on each point, and my claim was upheld, and I didn’t have to repay the $43.00 in benefits I had received 
I found it extremely amusing that, throughout the proceedings, the assistant manager acted as if he didn’t know who I was beyond my personnel file. This despite the fact the he was the one who had hired me, I had daily contact with him, and we addressed each other at work by first names. It was also interesting that a number of other people were “fired” immediately after the Christmas season - all people with little seniority. It looked to me like a layoff disguised as “terminations for cause”.
Same in Georgia. We had a receptionist go on maternity leave. We hired a replacement with a clear written understanding that the position was temporary until the original receptionist returned. At that point, the temporary employee filed for unemployment. We appealed and lost. When the receptionist had her next baby, we just managed without a receptionist for three months, so the government legislation had the effect of keeping somone out of work.
Wow, that just seems petty. The employer didn’t understand the rules, so he’s gonna take his ball and go home. It’s not as if the employer is paying the entire amount of the unemployment check! Also, if I was the receptionist having the baby, and I watched my employer decide to just do without anybody in my position until I returned, I would be really nervous about the employer discovering that he didn’t need me there after all. I mean, gosh, he can manage without me for three months?
That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. The amount of money would be a pittance.
I worked for the local hospital for almost 6 years as the IT administrator. In all that time, I had been answering tech calls after hours and on weekends with no contract and no additional compensation. One weekend I loaned my cell phone to my son and he lost it. The hospital was having internet problems and tried to call me and could not reach me. Then they called my supervisor who ended up going in to work. The following week she wrote me up for not answering. I told her that I didn’t believe she could write me up for not answering my personal cell phone which I pay, not the hospital. She said that she could because I was an exempt employee and expected to be available. I countered that IT needs to have an on-call policy and be compensated for odd hours worked. I never would have pushed the issue if she hadn’t written me up. She came back with a cell phone stipend that stated the hospital would pay $20 a month toward my cell phone bill and I would be expected to answer my phone when needed. I refused to sign it stating that I would not be at their beck and call for only $20 a month. She told me that if I didn’t sign there would be consequences. We had a meeting with most of the directors present to discuss how situations would be handled in the case that I could not be reached. I stated at the meeting that we needed an on-call policy for IT so they would be guaranteed coverage at all times and that IT should be compensated for hours worked. My supervisor fired me and said on my termination that I breached the confidentiality policy and told the other directors what my salary was and what other’s salaries were. In reality, she had warned me about the consequences of not signing the cell phone agreement and then made up an excuse on my termination notice in an effort to deny me my unemployment benefits. They fought it tooth and nail even though she knows she lied. I was initially denied benefits and had to have a telephone hearing with a judge who decided in my favor and even wrote that my employer expected me to be available 24/7 for a meager $20 a month. The hospital appealed AGAIN and it had to go to the review board. I also won that appeal and basically the review board saw through her lies as well. Needless to say, it was a very harrowing ordeal and I couldn’t understand why they would fight it so hard, especially since I was a very loyal employee who worked hard as all my annual evaluations attested to. I think my former supervisor really just didn’t like me and was irked when I refused to be manipulated.
Employers fight those cases because, at least here in the State of Washington, the effect of having an ex-employee on state benefits is huge. I’m connected with two businesses here, an auto repair shop and a homeowner’s association.
At the shop, we are careful to document everything that concerns the termination of an employee (luckily, this happens rarely), and while these ex’s always seem to file for unemployment, we’ve never had the state uphold one of them. At the homeowners association, one employee quit, and convinced the state that he should get unemployment.
As the taxes collected by the state for the unemployment fund are based on a percentage of the salary paid to the current employees, here is what happened as a result.
The auto shop pays 0.38% of this base to the state, while the homeowner’s association rate is 5.7%.
So yes, it’s definitely in the employer’s best interest to fight these cases.
To answer the OP, it’s just like if you have 3 or 4 wrecks under your car insurance policy. You get rated up on your premiums if you have a bunch of employees collecting unemployment, so that gives an employer an incentive to challenge it.
This thread is 6 years old. It was bumped today by a new poster.
D’oh! I should have checked that first.
I am confused how an IT administrator is unable to locate the enter key on their keyboard. 
If you want her to hit “enter” on her off hours, you’ll have to compensate her accordingly. 
I wasn’t even a regular employee, I was a 1099 contractor. I shouldn’t have gotten benefits at all and their policy was to fight any and all unemployment claims. I got lucky. I managed to prove that my job wasn’t a 1099 position, and they’d classified me wrong (big no-no). I’d also sent in a lot of documentation, which apparently my former employer sent but it never got there. I got to see what they sent though; they copied me. Stupid crap, emails I’d sent, a copy of my linkedin account which showed I had a job (a crappy $5/hour oDesk job that didn’t pay me enough to not get benefits). So I was able to refute evidence that the judge didn’t even have in front of him and was called later to verify my working status, they completely agreed with me. And I sent everything to the IRS.
Still, it’s a good idea to never question your employer’s ways. They will find a way to fire you for it. In my case it was questioning my 1099 status in the first place and asking to actually be treated like one. They let me for about a month and then let me go. “Lack of Work.” I was the office manager and handled payroll.
Worst job I ever had. They hired stupid people on purpose (literally, brain dead almost) and I was too smart for them.
Zombification aside, I recently heard a discussion about a potential claim that may shed some light on this question.
The rules are apparently different for nonprofits. If what I was told is true, regular corporations pay into a fund as part of compensation packages, but (presumably because so many of them operate on a shoestring) nonprofits do not have to do this. Instead, they pay a token amount and pay more when an actual claim is assessed.
This came up because a nonprofit, strapped for funds, laid off an acquaintance, and when he considered filing for unemployment, it was pointed out that he’d be taking the money directly out of the already-struggling cause, not some pre-paid fund, and all his friends urged him not to do so (but to search for steady employment instead).
If the girlfriend from the OP was fired from a nonprofit, that might account for them “fighting [the claim] tooth and nail.”
My company contests hundreds of unemployment claims per year, and we win about 80% of the hearings. Usually it’s a case where the employee was terminated for cause, and as long as we have all the documentation we typically win those. When we lose, it’s because we don’t have the documentation or the person responsible failed to show up at the hearing.
Some cases are more gray - for example, if someone goes on medical leave and exhausts all available leave we will usually terminate them if they are unable to return to work. Most states consider that a voluntary separation and do not charge us, but some states do. Still, we pay literally millions of dollars a year in unemployment costs so it’s vitally important that we contest any claim that we think we have a chance at winning.