Denied Unemployment Texas

[Texas903Bell]

On March 23, 2010 I left my job due to an employee being hostile towards me and claiming I was not doing my job. The employee was the former lead over my department. Several weeks earlier he was de-promoted to a regular employee and I was told not to listen to anyone other than one of the 3 other managers. I had reported his behavior to the other supervisors on several occasions and nothing was done about it. So when he started a confrontation that day I just left. I told the other supervisor I was leaving and clocked out and left. I immediately called the plant manager to tell him what happened but he didn’t want to listen. Two days later I went up to the office to get my check and I told the vice president of the company what happened. He told me that I could take the rest of the week as vacation and to come back on Monday and talk to the plant manager. He told me to call the plant manager and let him know that I would be coming back on Monday. So I called him and he refused to talk to me, I didn’t even get to finish one sentence before he hung up on me.

I was denied unemployment because they said I disobeyed a direct order from a supervisor and didn’t do what they wanted me to do. That day I left I was doing what the supervisor of my building told me to do and the former department supervisor was trying to make me do something else that the building supervisor had told me not to do. Since the plant manager had told me not to listen to him I didn’t. It has been an ongoing problem since he was de-promoted in December 2009. There was a meeting about it where everyone in our building to inform us that he was no longer a boss and not to listen to him. We had another meeting in February 2010 about him continuing to act like a boss and for us to stop listening to him or we would get written up or terminated. We were told to let them handle him and to only listen to what they said. I complained several times during this time period that he was telling me to do things I wasn’t supposed to do and getting hostile when I didn’t do it.

I wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for that problem. I got along with everyone else and I wasn’t the only one having problems with him. Now they are telling me that he was a boss and denying me unemployment saying that I was insubordinate. What should I do about this?

[Betty3]

You did leave - you generally don't get UI benefits when you leave/quit your job. You should definitely appeal - it never hurts & you might win. It will be up to the "state" to decide if you quit with "good cause."

[Texas903Bell]

I wouldn't have left but I felt like I had no other choice. I asked to get transferred to the other building but they told me I was too important to building two's operation to get transferred. That was several months ago. I tried to solve the problem through the chain of command but they wouldn't do anything about it. I wasn't the only person who had this problem, many other employees have also complained about it. Since I left a couple of other employees have left for the same reason. When people complain to the plant manager he never did anything about it. I was motivated to leave because a couple of years ago there was an incident that I wasn't involved in but he was where it ended in violence so I decided to leave before it got to that point.

[cbg]

The standard to quit and receive UI is very high. I will be surprised if this meets the standard.

But, as Betty says, it can't hurt to appeal. If you do, you might or might not get benefits but if you don't, you definitely won't.

[Texas903Bell]

The people at the workforce office said that I have a good appeal. I also talked to a lawyer here in Tx about it and they all say that it's worth appealing it. So that's what I'm going to do. Plus they gave TWC inaccurate information about why I left. They said it was insubordination, but how could it have been insubordination when I was told by the plant manager not to listen to him because he wasn't a boss. The problem should never have gotten to that point, because I did report the problem several times so the plant manager should have stepped in and done something about it. So the advice I've been given is to go ahead and appeal and not worry about that I quit. I'm just going to appeal and focus on why management didn't step in and resolve the problem when they knew that he was already know for that kind of thing.

[cbg]

That's not the way to go.

If you have any hope of winning the appeal, you want to focus NOT on what someone else did or on how management should handled things differently, but on what YOU did to solve the problem before you quit. Blaming management for not taking the action you thought they ought to take isn't going to help; you need to keep the focus on how YOU tried to resolve the problem.

[Texas903Bell]

Sounds like I will focus on that instead. I already took responsibility about leaving when I talked to the VP, so they already know I am not pointing the finger at anyone. I hope I win the appeal but I am not going to count on it. I plan on continuing to look for another job ad that has been my plan since I left. The workers at the local offices are going to help me through the process.

[Texas903Bell]

Ok now I am really confused. I was told on my phone interview that I was being denied due to failure to obey a superior or insubordination is that that said it came down to. I explain to them that I was not insubordination because that person was not a lead. It was well know in our building that he was de-promoted.

Now after I get my denied letter its tell me "Reason for Decision: Our investigation found that you did not like your working conditions. You were aware of the working conditions when you accepted this job. The reason for quitting was not good connected with work.

Now I explain to them on the phone that I enjoyed my job and that it was the best job I ever had. In fact the working conditions where not the reason I left. I left due to an unresolved problem that I had reported to management over a long period of time. In fact I found the job easy to do even with all the hard work.

Where I am confused is do they consider a problem with another employee a working condition. If so then I have to disagree with what they are saying. When I was hired there I had no problem what so ever with this employee until I started getting assigned more tasks that involved multiple departments other then the one I was hired for.