Fired from the Borg! Can I get Unemployment Insurance in MA?
From the Massachusetts DUA website: Will I be able to collect UI benefits if I am fired? Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 151A, governs the unemployment insurance program. According to the law, you may be eligible if you were fired for poor performance. However, if your employer is able to show that you were fired for deliberate misconduct or violation of a company rule, you may be disqualified. You were fired for cause and will not be eligible for unemployment insurance as determined by state law. Sorry.
Is it possible to assume that everyone on MetaFilter is not a lawyer unless they state otherwise? Since you said “financial services company,” I’m going to assume this is a company subject to data retention and monitoring laws/rules. Therefore, the company policy you violated may be rather severe because they need to monitor all of the information coming into or going out of their network and that’s the primary reason personal e-mail is blocked. Either way, using utilities to bypass firewall/policy restrictions is usually a Bad Thing(tm), regardless the reason though in this case your employer likely had these in place because getting slapped with a huge fine for failing to follow those laws isn’t worth it. I’m not saying you should be some uncaring automaton who exists solely for the working pleasure of your employers, but the people who pay you do have the expectation that their policies will be followed, even if you don’t agree with or understand the reasoning. Therefore, you will p
Bostonian here. Through friends/acquaintances, I’ve heard of HR at different companies “fire” someone, but file it as a layoff officially so they can collect. It’s kind of a nicer gesture seen for longer term employees who screwed up and had to be terminated under company policy, but didn’t fuck up severely as to have criminal charges pressed against them. I’ve also known of people who were just fired, were not given the assurance of “we won’t contest unemployment insurance” and still were able to collect. Don’t ask me how or why, just one of the many nonsensical joys of Massachusetts. Apply for it. They said they won’t contest it. Worst case scenario, you are denied unemployment benefits. Best case scenario, you have an unemployment check.
You were fired for cause and will not be eligible for unemployment insurance as determined by state law. Sorry. In practice, the only way MA would know this is by the employer contesting unemployment. Since the employer is not contesting unemployment, then the asker will very likely be eligible for unemployment insurance. Who knows what the “official” reason the employer decided on for his termination.
