Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Florida
My employer, in Jacksonville, FL, just sold the company to a different enterprise in Clearwater, FL (near Tampa, 3-4 hours away from Jacksonville). I would be required to move there within the next 30 days to 12 months, the timeline is still a bit unclear. I am currently 16 weeks pregnant, I'm not sure if that matters or not, my spouse has a good job that he likes, and we do not wish to move. Would I be eligible for unemployment if I voluntarily quit my job due to an unwillingness to relocate? Additionally, would my eligibility change if my (new) employer offered to fund my relocation? Would any other factors affect my eligibility?
Thank you.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
First off, this isn't a "relocation" issue. This is plain firing.
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luhna023
sold the company to a different enterprise
Different employer means that you were fired from the job that you had. At worst, it's a "refusal of work" if you don't work for the new company, and a three hour drive to work is "too far" and renders it unsuitable.
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luhna023
I am currently 16 weeks pregnant, I'm not sure if that matters or not,
It matters in the sense that it makes things worse for you. It raises "able and available" issues. Do NOT ever talk about your pregnancy or use it as an excuse when it comes to UI. UI is no sympathy system. You must lose your job for the right reason, be able and available for work, and looking for work. If you want to say, "I can't do that because I'm pregnant," you won't see any UI money until you can do what is required.
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luhna023
Would I be eligible for unemployment if I voluntarily quit my job due to an unwillingness to relocate?
If you "quit," you'll complicate things for yourself. You keep doing the job you have right now exactly where it's at, and when the employer says, "starting tomorrow, you won't be working here, but if you still want work report to Tampa." At that point, you stop going to work because you were fired from the job that you HAD.
Don't throw around the word "quit" ever again. It will just confuse people.
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luhna023
Additionally, would my eligibility change if my (new) employer offered to fund my relocation?
No. Too far is too far. However, it might not even be a "refusal." If the employer is requiring you to reapply for the job, and you chose not to, that's just fine. No one can make you apply for a job except the UI people. In this scenario, there is no "refusal" because you were never made an offer. An offer is NOT an invitation to apply with a high probability of being hired. It looks like this "Starting Monday, we want you to work as a data entry clerk. Your hours will be 8 am to 5 pm. You'll work Monday to Friday. Do you want the job?" If they say things like "you'll have to apply," or "the job is contingent on you passing a drug test and background check," then that's no offer.
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luhna023
Would any other factors affect my eligibility?
Yeah, if you use your pregnancy as an excuse to not to do what everyone else has to do, it will be a problem.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
Damn it, chyvan. No, this is not a firing. Even if the employer has been sold. If there is a solid offer of work at the new location, that is not a firing. But it does not have to be a firing for UI to be approved and if you don't know that, it's time you did.
You are also throwing in a whole lot of "if they do this" type non-facts and then answering the OP's question as if those facts are a certainty, even though the OP never mentioned them. Posters have had their accounts deleted for that, sometimes more than once. (See "Raster" and "HRinDevon") Not that it would bother me particularly if that happened to you - I'm tired of having to clean up your messes. Don't come back and tell me again how many people have gotten their claims approved because of you - considering how few people actually come back and tell us what happened, that's an exaggeration at best and an outright lie is more likely.
OP, no, your pregnancy is not a factor in whether you will be eligible for unemployment or not. The only ones who can say for certain if you will be able to collect UI if you refuse a transfer of three hours away, but as long as you do not work at all in the new location it is more likely to be approved than not. Don't let chyvan twisting the meanings of words and concepts confuse you.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
cbg, is that you with a new name?
If you want to tell her it's a "quit," then go ahead, but I'll stand by what I said, and I'd see her through on any appeal if it is necessary, but you won't.
Just because they don't come back here, doesn't mean they don't come back on the other site that I hang out on that has way more UI threads than any other site on the internet that I've seen. Go there. Read the success stories.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
Yes, it is, and I've explained elsewhere why the new name. If you didn't read it, that's not my problem. Hopefully it's temporary.
If you are saying that if she rejects the transfer and doesn't work at all in the new position she'll get unemployment, I agree with that. It's your terming it a firing I object to. You never have learned that words have meanings and you can't just use them any way you want to and expect that it won't excite remark.
They don't come back here, they don't come back on either of the other two boards where you and I both post, but they do come back on one where I don't, and they (and you) have proof positive that the sole reason they succeeded was because of you? Uh-huh.
I've said before, we still have no guarantee that any "successes" are because of you and not in spite of you.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
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ChristieG
Yes, it is, and I've explained elsewhere why the new name. If you didn't read it, that's not my problem. Hopefully it's temporary.
That should tell you that you're not the focus of my life.
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ChristieG
If you are saying that if she rejects the transfer
You're calling it a transfer, I'm not. New employing unit, new work. If she has to reapply for the job, that furthers the argument it's not a transfer and it's not even an offer.
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ChristieG
It's your terming it a firing I object to. You never have learned that words have meanings and you can't just use them any way you want to and expect that it won't excite remark.
You're forgetting one thing. I lived this. I kept saying I quit with good cause when my employer gutted my hours and compensation. I kept getting denied. When I started to say that I was fired from the job that I had, and the new offer of work was unsuitable, I got traction, and got benefits. So I know from personal experience that if you can make something look like a firing, that's what you do.
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ChristieG
they don't come back on either of the other two boards
There's a third, and I don't think you go there, but you could easily find it.
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ChristieG
I've said before, we still have no guarantee that any "successes" are because of you and not in spite of you.
With some, but when I write someone's board of review appeal for them, and succeed, I know that's me. When someone gets their schedule changed, and the claimant makes an issue of "child care," and I get them to shift gears because a schedule change can be a substantial change to the terms of conditions of employment, I know that's me. When someone is telling a bad sounding story, and then does "just say, 'fired,' don't take the call," and gets benefits because the employer said nothing, I know that's me.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
So you ARE acting as a consultant when you're neither qualified nor licensed to do so. (And we still haven't dealt with 'in spite of').
Where does she say she has to reapply for job? It doesn't sound like she has to do anything of the kind; she just needs to show up and go to work (assuming she wants the job). That, my dear, is a transfer. And that is what I mean when I say you make up facts and then base your answers around them.
That's okay. It took a while before HRinDevon/Raster was banned for doing that.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
This is SOOOOOO stupid.
"That should tell you that you're not the focus of my life."
Good gawd. A person's company closes down the worksite. They move the company to another location, four or five hours away from the employees' home and former place of work. All this person needs to do is apply for benefits, explaining the situation. Unemployment insurance does not require you to be anything but able, available, and actively ready to do equivalent work. A four or five hour commute is NOT reasonable. This person does not even need to mention their pregnancy. The company is moving. They are closing their current location. This person at the current location is being let go through no fault of their own because they do not wish to commute four or five hours. Their job left them.
File for benefits. Tell the system what has happened. Your company moved. You do not need to go into your pregnancy or health issues. Your job is shutting down the location where you worked. You file for benefits. You are able, available and actively seeking work equivalent to the work you had. It has relocated. Regardless of what they offer you in terms of relocation, it is NOT an equivalent job. That's all you need to do. File the claim, they'll work it out. Pay no attention to the person on the internet who gets all their gratification out of something they've only had limited experience in but have gotten the call to make their life's work. It's not that complicated. This is Florida, for gosh sake. Just file the claim.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
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ChristieG
So you ARE acting as a consultant when you're neither qualified nor licensed to do so.
People know exactly what they're getting with me, and they aren't paying for it. So don't try to make it sound like I'm doing something wrong. If they don't agree with me, they can pay someone that they think knows more or take some other random person's opinion from the internet over mine.
Commentator, don't you think I tried things your way? Apparently a reduction from 36 hours per week to 20 and the loss of my full-time benefits to the tune of $7,500 wasn't enough to be a good cause quit, but surprisingly, it was a non disqualifying discharge and a refusal of unsuitable work.
She's free to do what she wants in the "quit" vs "discharge" point of view, but I KNOW a "discharge" will just make a claimant's life a lot easier.
Re: Can I Collect Unemployment if My Employer Relocates
I don't have to try to make it sound like you're doing something wrong. You're doing a really good job of it all by yourself with no help from me. And the fact that I know without being told that you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about and that you think everything you're doing is just fine, really says everything about you that needs to be said.