NC,, for just cause and will appeal everything

by RE Taber

(Joneville,NC)

I was employed at an illegal rate of 400.00 salary per week. My boss claimed I was exempt from overtime and required me to work more than 597 hrs of overtime unpaid. When I discovered I was not exempt I filed a complaint with the Labor dept. While waiting for this I discovered a 15 yr. old working at the same place was doing things in violation of child labor laws and OSHA, this too was reported to the Labor investigator who showed up one day before I decided to (” become an inactive employee”) at the place of business. I never told anyone I quit or resigned, in my mind I still work there, just not while there are a number of saftey violations and outstanding pay for hours worked left unpaid. I tried a number of attempts to resolve the issues with my boss before calling the Labor Dept. and before they showed to no avail. In fact his words to me were” If you don’t want to work their are plenty of people who will take the job” This is where it gets interesting, prior to not showing up I took 80 photos of the poor unsafe working conditions as well as photo copied ( with my own paper and printer ) all the schedule books supporting my claim of overtime. Furthermore i tracked my own hours without telling anyone. My employer was asked by the investigator how many people worked for him and he stated just me cause i was the only one on the payroll, everyone else was paid in cash. Then she asked other questions and caught him lying to her, so not good. After questioning some of the other employees there she discovered the child labor issues were in fact true. My employrr was hit with 15 labor violations and OSHA has yet to show but i am sure they will. I forwarded the photos and my time book cause my employer had NO RECORDS on me what so ever including hrs. I signed up for unemployment and was denied cause i left work. I informed them of the matters and provide the Labor investigator name and number as well as the case number to the Adjudicator, she said it wasn’t her job to call the investigator. Now while all this is going on everyone has forgotten I have a disability and have also been denied reasonable accommodations by my employer who to top it off has told the ajudicator that he knows nothing about his ” Illegal” activity. I am taking this as “retaliatory” actions by him to deny me benefits. I do have some protection as a whislteblower and a right to protect myself and all my legal rights State and Federal and I plan to use them. I also believe I am entilted to have my job back. Now for the worst part, can’t find a lawyer to even hear my case. tried to email as many as 35 locally. SO do i have ” just cause for unemployment” I have never been verbally or written up for anything. I can and will support all I claim in every matter with true evidence from his own records, So I’m wondering, what kind of defense could I really have? Would he dare come to the appeals hearing? I really hope so I will have a list of questions and counted more than 22 wittiness’s that will have to be suppena’d for this matter even if i don’t have a lawyer yet.

Hi RE,

I’ve got one bit of news for you to also consider.

You did quit. You don’t have a right to have your job back .. no matter what you think.

The fact that you did quit is substantiated by the fact that you filed for unemployment. You MUST be at least partially unemployed when you file.

Go to the hearing with all you’ve got, but don’t forget, the burden will be yours to prove you quit with good cause. Anything else is irrelevant to getting unemployment.

Nothing like cluttering up the issue. .. Let’s just hope that if you copied employer records without permission or took them off the premises to do so .. that you haven’t done something illegal.