If I am on call 24/7 with no relief, can I quit my job and collect unemployment?

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If I am on call 24/7 with no relief, can I quit my job and collect unemployment?

I work 40+ hours a week and when I go home from work, I’m on call 24/7. When I first hired on 6 years ago, I was told I would be sharing on-call with our sister facility 30 minutes away. However, less then 6 months after that, my management company sold that sister facility. This left me with nobody for the past 6 years to share call with. I cannot remember the last time I had a day off where I didn’t have to come back to work to address an issue. I am the only male in this buildingand a lot of these females aren’t willing to try to keep me from having to come out on certain situations.

Asked on January 13, 2012 under Employment Labor Law, Indiana

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 12 years ago | Contributor

As a general matter, no--if you quit your job for any reason, including being on-call 24/7, you are not eligible for unemployment, since that is a voluntary separation from employment. People can, and frequently, expected to work, or at least be available to work, all the time, and that does not give them the right to collect unemployment.

If you believe you are being treated worse or differently than other employees--you say that you are being called out constantly because you are the only male and the female employees are not wiling to address certain situations themselves--it is *possible* that you might have a claim for sex-based discrimination. However, it also may be that this is simply a function of your job/position; for example, if you are a maintenance person (you don't indicate what your job actually is) and none of the women are, it would be your job to deal with all maintence-related problems. If however you believe that you are being treated badly because of your gender, not your job, you  may wish to speak with an employment law attorney to see if you might have a claim.


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