I Was Terminated From My Part-time Job And Lost My Benefits
How many of us full-time job applicants eagerly began a full-time job–as which we were hired for–but with desires for surviving the company’s 90-day employment period in order to qualify for health benefits, only to have our weekly work schedule cut down to 20 hours a week, clearly a part-time job status?
This unfavorable predicament has happened to many low-skilled and even some highly-skilled technical professions throughout The United States begining with the economic crisis that leveled the business landscape in America and abroad.Some full-time employees that suddenly found themselves working part-time job schedules realized at the last minute and with no chance of receiving a comprehensive healthcare package from the employer.
Did you find yourself repeating the same scenario with the next job and the following job as was the case for many low-skilled,and full-time job seekers. I f this reads like the current nightmare that is your life, then you are not alone in this sinkhole. It seems that the idea of an entry level job with eventual full-benefits has become the elsuive American dream of late. Thus comprehensive group coverage plans for many American workers has become the biggest puzzle in regards to prequalification.
How much service time committed to your employer in order to receive full or partial benefits is a important question that must be asked durring any job interview, or your first meeting with the Human Resources-Benefit Plans Administrator. Your not inquiring about your “time-in-grade”, as they say in the military, probationary period before your benefits kick in–will potentially enable your employer to take advantage of your low expectations. Your employer may modify,reduce the level of benefits, or simply eliminate all benefit plans without your knowledge.This is illegal in some states depending on the number of employees in the business and depending on how long you worked for that employer. You will have to consult your state laws or consult with a life insurance agent that sells group life and heatlh care plans to businesses.
The cost of group health and life insurance for plans have become expensive for all sizes of businesses in light of the 2-year economic crisis that has plagued the American economy. Accelerated downsizing of small and medium sized businesses across America has led to the dismantaling of compensation packages that had non-contractual health benefits attached to them. Thus even new MBA hires in their second year of full-time employment find themselves voting on a new company group health plan that have less benefits than the year before, and the alternative group health plan being offered by the employer’s Benefits Manager has even less coverage.
The insurance agent sitting in on the meeting is simply smiling as you read the painfully short one paragraph plan summary statements of each benefits proposal. Although most benefits plan summaries are pages long, this scaled-down health coverage plan is just 1 paragraph-the entire prospectus is 5 pages including legal disclosures! The insurance agent is searching for romantic 2-week destinations in Hawaii on his Apple I-phone,he’s getting his fat commission from whichever-and now generic plan– your co-workers will unanimously vote upon. Although many insurance agents care about your plight for better coverage, and they often fight hard for the more comprehensive benefits plan-not only because of the commisison insentive ,but also for the “human insentive” of negotiating for you a better deal. But for the sake of this article, this particular agent does not care, he’s happy just to be writing some new business in this Darwinian economy for any type of group plan.
American part-time jobs and full-time jobs are under tremendous downward pressure from employers who provide little or no health coverage to part-time job workers who have shortened work weeks that never materialize into full-time job status for obtaining full healthcare coverage.
Basic Employee benefits knowledge is a vital metric to have when sizing-up a potential part-time job or full-time career. One must first be aquainted with COBRA. COBRA is not the arch enemy as in the comic book GI-JOE. COBRA in this article refers to the Consolidated OMnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986. COBRA is actually an amendment of the larger Employee Retirement Security Act. A part-time, or full-time career employee should consult with an experienced life& health insurance agent for a conversation about the COBRA benefits you may be entitled to after you have lost your employment.
In most American states, if your employer has more than twenty employees who have worked at least half the year, then you are eligible for COBRA orchestrated benefits–this includes full-time and part-time workers. One should not walk away from a job after being dismissed without talking with your human resources manager about your extended benefits if any that survive after your job has been terminated. Incedentaly, your former employer may give you the alternative of dropping such benefits as eye care, dental or both while you are nolonger employed with the company BUT on COBRA. Alternatively, if your former employer completely replaces the company’s group plan of health insurance for the remaining employees while you are on COBRA, by law provisions in the COBRA Act, you are entitled to receive benefits under the new plan.
The problem for many “under-employed” Americans is that they have been unable to be employed long enough to satisfy the minimum requirements of prior consecutive employment to receive COBRA benefits after termination from their jobs. A more evil twist has been the rampant firing of new employees “for cause”; this statement in itself implies that the former employee grossly violated company policy even on criminal grounds and was summarily terminated. Many wrongful termination cases have been based on the claim that the former employer invented or frammed the part-time employee in order to avoid enrolling the new employee into the company’s benefits program.
Part-time workers and high-skilled technical workers who are soley employed on a project-to-project basis like traveling business consultants, all have hopes of becoming full-time career employees with comprehensive benefits.However, the AMerican economy of late has prevented most national and international firms from further extending the status of “full-time employee” to part-time workers because of corporate budget constraints.
The lesson to take away from this article; know your employer’s benefits package and understand exactly when you can enroll, what you will receive, and what you will take away with you under COBRA provisions once your job has been terminated.
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