Unemployment Compensation (M.G.L.c. 151A)

(Adjudicatory Rules of Practice and Procedure)

• Employees who are unemployed, actively seeking work and capable of and available for work are eligible for unemployment compensation.
  
  
• Employees can be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits for:
  
  • deliberate misconduct in willful disregard of the employer's interests;
    
  • knowingly violating a reasonable and uniformly enforced policy or rule; or
    
  • voluntary resignation without good cause attributable to the employer.
    
    
• Benefits will also not be paid:
  
  • If the claimant's unemployment is due to a work stoppage which is part of a labor dispute.;
    
  • If the claimant fails to apply for or accept suitable employment;
• If the claimant is not available for work;
  
• If the claimant is receiving workers' compensation benefits; or
  
• For up to 10 weeks if a claimant has been suspended from work for violating established rules.

• A written agreement between an employer and an employee under which the employee would receive a payment in return for the employee's release of all claims against the employer does not disqualify the employee from obtaining unemployment benefits where the payment was not for services previously rendered inasmuch as the employee would receive nothing unless he signed the agreement. White v. Commissioner of the Department of Employment and Training, 40 Mass. App Ct. 249, 252-254 (1996)
  
  

 

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