Resigning because of verbally abusive management

by Nina

(NYC)

I have worked for a company for a few years. The managing partners are rude , verbally abusive , and disrespectful.The job has been affecting my health. I would like to resign but have not found a new job yet. Would I be eligible for unemployment? There is no way to prove that the management is abusive, as nobody will stand up as a witness, because everyone is bullied and scared.

Hi Nina n NYC,

Good cause to quit a job, at least the kind you can receive unemployment benefits for, is about your own ability to prove the fault for quitting, was reasonably attributable to the employer, at the moment you quit.

Telling me you have no way to prove you are being verbally harassed, because other employees won’t stand up for you to ignore a culture of fear and intimidation, is what allows for this type of stuff to go on .. and on and on in a workplace, at least in my mind.

However, I think you’re basically choosing to ignore your own power to at least try to meet an important fundamental that can prove when someone has met the burden of proof assigned to the voluntary leaver of employment to get UI benefits.

After ten years of answering these questions about harassment and UI, I have continuously stressed the importance that an employee use their own power to document their own actions, as well as those of their employer they are having a problem with.

Or when they do .. document, they do not document with enough factual and pragmatic specificity, to help a neutral hearing of facts, put themselves into the shoes of the “reasonable person standard” to ask what they might do under similar circumstances .. up to an including feeling like they have exhausted efforts to preserve the employment relationship.

Whether one person’s documentation ends up constituting good cause to quit, or not, it really does hinge on whether as written it proves the intent of the employee was to bring a legitimate issues in the workplace to the attention of the appropriate powers that be in the company to give the employer an opportunity to help the employee, resolve a problem and therefore, preserve the employment relationship.

If this documented course of action does not prompt a business to correct course with steps intended to correct a problem that really should be fixed, the employee’s documentation detailing their own actions and those of employer, can then be used to prove the burden they face, should they quit and only think to file an unemployment claim .. after the cause for quitting is over.

I would advise you read more about what can constitute prohibited employer practices at the
EEOC, because the EEOC frowns on retaliatory workplace cultures .. because retaliation as a practice, is what makes employees fear exercising their own rights in the workplace.

If you, like many employees, are looking for information about unemployment insurance claims, because you think it will help you to avoid having to confront a legitimate problem with the work .. at work, then I would suggest reading more about
voluntarily quitting with good cause at the NY Unemployment Insurance Law Interpretive Services

Chris