Do you no longer have the right to quit your job?
Do you no longer have the right to quit your job?
I didn't get on so well with my manager that I ended up slamming the door on my job. The unemployment fund informed me that I would have to pay a penalty. I think that's unfair when we're required to pay monthly insurance against this kind of event. What are the criteria for this penalty and how can I contest it?
Jean-Pierre
The Federal Law on Compulsory Unemployment Insurance and Compensation in the Event of Insolvency does not guarantee that an income will be safeguarded in all circumstances (otherwise contributions would be much higher!). On the contrary, Article 30 of the Act provides for a whole series of circumstances in which entitlement to unemployment benefit may be suspended.
This includes cases where it is established that the insured is out of work through his or her own fault. Examples include a person who has given good reason to his former employer to dismiss him, or who has resigned without reason and without having another job in sight, or who has left a stable job for another job of short duration, or who has refused a job that can be described as suitable.
Insured persons who do not carry out sufficient job searches themselves or who submit their job searches after the deadline set by the Unemployment Fund for doing so may also have their benefits suspended. The same applies to anyone who does not comply with unemployment control regulations or instructions given to them, who does not attend a labour market measure or who interrupts it without a valid reason.
Suspension will also be imposed for any behaviour considered abusive, such as giving false or incomplete information to the Fund or the Employment Office, or attempting to obtain unemployment benefits when not entitled to them.
The duration of the suspension will depend on the seriousness of the misconduct of which the insured person is accused, but it must also comply with the principle of proportionality; benefits may therefore be suspended for between a single day and, in the most serious cases, up to 60 days. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has adopted an indicative scale for enforcement bodies, which can be used to check whether the duration of suspension is appropriate in a specific case (Directives / LACI Bulletins / Circulars (arbeit.swiss)).
