Work week cut down to 4 days

[draftermatt]

Today at 1:30 I was informed that starting tomorrow the office and plant will be shut down every Friday until further notice.

We all knew it was coming, we had a great August and September but that included finishing quite a few projects.

The rumors started flying the Tuesday, the plant workers were told yesterday, office manager at 11 AM, and then I had to ask "um can I work tomorrow"

So this sucks.

The search for a 2nd job begins again!

[bainsidhe]

Are entire departments closing down? Are you hourly? I don't know about your state, but New York state has a "Shared Work Program", which essentially means employees can collect unemployment for the hours they aren't working each week. There are restrictions (aren't there always?) such as an entire department (hourly workers) have to reduce hours by 20% before qualifying. The entire department has to be on board and it has to be minimum 20% reduction in hours. So a 40hr week reduced to 32hr qualifies. This is just an example. Check it out.

[draftermatt]

It's the entire company shutting down for 1 day a week. I had wondered about something like what you described, I'll have to look into it if this lasts

[bainsidhe]

http://www.dllr.state.md.us/employment/worksharing/

Here's a link I found for Maryland. Thing is, I'm pretty sure your employer needs to be actively pursuing this because it affects their unemployment insurance rates. It's also a paperwork nightmare for HR (our poor HR person has now pretty much become a full-time Shared Work program person ). Good luck. Our company has been taking things week by week. Some weeks have full hours, other weeks don't. I'll be glad once this year is over.

One other thing to consider, is that any unemployment pay/benefits are affected by additional jobs. Keep that in mind when/if you look for additional work. Because if you start getting that unemployment pay, a second job may wipe out that benefit. Which mostly defeats the purpose of having a second job.

[draftermatt]

Thanks for looking for that.

We're a small operation (2 owners, 3 office staff, 8 labor) so no HR, just the owner. But I will bring this up to him, or his wife (who "helps" him make decisions)

[technical.angel]

My dad's work has done it once already. They're threatening to do it once agian.

Good luck, Draftermatt