I recently gave my two week notice to my employer of 21 years. They initially tried to get me to sign a contract with deferred compensation if I would give them a 1 year notice to quit. I declined, so they asked me to stay a month to train the incoming person. I agreed. Unfortunately, one lady was passed over in my department for my position and an outside person was hired instead for more money. The lady that was passed over quit because of this. Then, the new person (who was salaried) that was hired also quit when she was told she would be working lots of overtime due to the loss of now two people in the department. Even though my extended time of one month was not fulfilled, my employer asked me to leave and escorted me from the building as he felt my being there was causing issues and he made a mistake by asking me to stay. My payroll check(s) were given to me that day and I was paid through the entire week. Did my employer actually change my "quit" to "fired" by telling me to leave earlier than was agreed, and if so, am I eligible for unemployment?

No. You still left voluntarily, they just accepted your notice earlier than expected. You may qualify for UC for the time period between when you were asked to go and when you would have ordinarily left.

You will definitely be eligible for the agreed upon extension that you were not paid. For purposes of UI, that is a discharge not a voluntary quit.

A very few states, CA comes immediately to mind, have determined that if an ER does not permit an EE to work out a notice period, then the separation is automatically a discharge. I do not know what AR rule and/or law is on this issue.

Of course, the fact that you quit does not automatically preclude an award of UI. Why did you quit?

rjc:
In response to your question about quitting. There are several, but mainly it was because even though the company had a Policy & Procedures Manual, they began a selective process of picking and choosing who it applied to. New employees were being hired in with more vacation than employees of 25 years, employees were being terminated prior to their eligibility for medical benefits, and there were 5 years of no increases for the long-term employees (ie, 20 years+). I found out that even though there were no increases for several years, select employees were being paid "under the table" in large cash sums and I just could no longer live with the inequity. Plus, the department manager was a verbally abusive person and it just was no longer worth it to stay. The verbal abuse and demeaning comments from the manager is also another reason the other person in the department left. I just felt that I could no longer be a part of the injustice to the devoted employees of the company and, in my heart, I felt that I had to leave because I could not watch it anymore.