Crossing the Broadway Bridge.

“I’d love to bike to work, but it takes too long.”

Actually, nope. Well, depending on how you look at it.

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John Carter says that if his employer
violated a condition of his hiring, he
shouldn’t be denied unemployment
coverage for refusing to comply.
(Photo courtesy Carter.)

A Southeast Portland man is questioning a state decision about when it’s “reasonable and prudent” to switch to a car commute in order to keep a job.

John Carter, 43, says he accepted a job on the condition that he wouldn’t have to drive to work. Four months later, he says, he was fired, then denied state unemployment insurance, after he refused to relocate to an office he feels would have required it.

Carter, who worked as a computer support analyst, sold his car after TriMet opened a Green Line MAX stop near his house. When he took a job with a Lake Oswego-based firm early this year, he said, his contract stipulated he would be able to work in the company’s downtown Portland location rather than at its headquarters, where late shifts make it impossible for him to commute home by public transit.

Four months later, Carter said, the company changed that deal. When he refused to work some shifts in Lake Oswego, he said, they fired him.

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