My question involves unemployment benefits for the state of: MA
I've been working at my current job in MA for a number of years (5+) and as time has gone on, they've had more and more financial difficulties. Over a year ago, they went from direct deposit to personal checks for paychecks and have had problems paying on time. Lately it has gotten even worse. My paycheck for Oct 16th was late 10 days. The one for the 30th was 14 days late (was given out yesterday, when I should have been getting a new paycheck).
Since I was nervous about it, I went to cash it at the bank it was drawn on and the account had insufficient funds. My boss called me (since the bank called him) to say I should have cashed it at my own bank instead since the money would have been in there by the time my bank requested the funds. I'd guess it is probably true (despite everything, there's never been any bounced checks) but it still makes me uncomfortable.
The check I was supposed to get this last Friday they claim I'll get on Wednesday, but who knows since they frequently say checks will come on a certain day and then they end up pushing it further on again.
I also found out that while they've been withholding taxes and 401k money from the paychecks, they haven't actually been paying it out to the government or the 401k plans. That's been going on for a least a couple of months. It also happened for a span of six months or so last year and there was a bunch of hoopla about how it wouldn't happen again and now it has. I don't have a 401k plan myself so not sure if helps my case, but maybe the tax thing does.
There was a week-long furlough two months where we didn't work and got half our normal paycheck and left our time sheets blank. At first they made it sound like we'd get a 50% bigger check the next time but it ended up being something about getting more vacation time and that we'd get a bonus someday when they got more money in.
Also there's the fact that a lot of freelancers and vendors haven't been paid, which gives the company a very bad reputation locally. I feel like at this point it is actually hurting my personal reputation to be working here. I've been looking for work but haven't found anything yet.
I'd like to try to quit and get unemployment so I can have a consistent paycheck and concentrate on finding a new job. I tried calling unemployment directly but they said they couldn't give any guidelines on what is just cause and I'd just have to quit and apply.
Someone else who quit here about 6 months ago was able to get unemployment but it just makes me nervous that I have to quit before I can have any idea of if I'd qualify. I'm pretty sure my boss will be reluctant to lay me off since I'm pretty important to the company (and it'd be hard for them to hire someone else with all the problems going on). It seems like it'd be better for me to just quit if I can manage to actually get the benefits.
Any thoughts? Thanks..

