Legal Question in Employment Law in California

I am asking a legal question for my mother. She works at a food packaging company on an assembly line where she has been for the last 32 years. In the last year, the company had a temporary shut down to make some repairs. Many of the employees were allowed to collect unemployment during the shut down period. My mother has chronic liver disease (non-alcohol related) as well as arthritis in her hands. Needless to say after working on the assembly line for 32 years, her body has taken a beating. Soon before the company finished it's repairs, they started calling all the employees with the highest seniority on the phone, and told them that since the repairs have been made that their current positions had been eliminated. The employees were told that they could come back and attempt to work in a different department, however there would be absolutely no training for the new position, and that they would all be expected to work at full capacity right off the bat. They were told that it would be extremely difficult, and tried to convince them to resign various times before they were called back to work. This company, which has always had hundreds of employees now seems to be only using a small group of employees to run the lines...only all of the high seniority employees. They have now returned to work for the last month. In the last month since they have returned to work, they have been worked to the bone at paces that none of them are used to...nor can handle. The amount of remaining employees dwindles every day because they cannot handle the heavy lifting and increased pace. My mother's liver disease and arthritis has now gotten significantly worse to the point where she cannot even pick up a cup. This is all the remaining employees, not just herself. Many of these people keep trying to work through the pain because they lost their health insurance during the time that the company was shut down, and now are working just to be able to get their insurance back in order to see their doctors. My mother went and spoke with management and asked about what options she had, considering that she is not able to keep up. These employees have been there for 30+ years, so they know what the speed of the machines are supposed to be, and all agree that they have never been this fast and that the employees had never been asked to do such grueling work. All of these employees speak only spanish, however they are all legal, so many of them are afraid to quit, because they believe that if they do, they will not get unemployment or their pensions, and it seems as though the company really wants them to resign. When my mother went and spoke with management, she asked them if she would at least get unemployment, if she could no longer continue to do the job. She was told that they could lay her off and give her unemployment for 9 months, after which they would give her a severance of only $1600 for her 32 years of service. In addition, all employees were told that if they remain anyway, that this coming February many new employees would be brought in, and that all seniority employees were going to automatically lose their seniority, and start at the same seniority of the new employees coming in for February. Then, it would be as if she wasn't even there for the last 32 years. One person we spoke to said that if she can no longer use her hands, that she should file for disablity instead of unemployment and her doctor agreed. However, we were also told that if she cannot go back tomorrow and she files for unemployment, that she will not be eligible for disability. She can't get a note from her doctor this week because they lost their insurance, and it doesn't kick back in until next month, but she is in too much pain to even go to work tomorrow. We are not sure if what they are doing is legal, and if getting unemployment will prevent her from qualifying for disability.

Thank you for your help.

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