Employment at Will Research

Employment at Will Research

Seham A. Alessa

Southern Oregon University

MBA 521 legal Issue / Business Management

December 6th 2016

[pic 1]

Table of Contents

Introduction        3

History        4

Exception to The Rule        5

Employee’s Rights        9

Cases        10

Conclusion        17

Reference List        19

Introduction

Firing an employee is never an easy thing especially when you have no reason to fire him/her. From an employer point of view, it is all about human resources side, however for employee it is why they got fire?  At will act give the right for employer to terminate any employee for no reason at any time. The first time I heard of this definition I was shocked in Saudi Arabia there is no way an employer can fire someone for no reason.

 That’s why I want to search more about this topic to understand from where this concept comes from and how an employee can protect himself from this act. The first thing I learned is that at will employment give the employee the right to quite at any time they want to. Which was also a surprise to me, because in Saudi Arabia each contract would have a condition where no one can quite without giving a month notice before and if not they would pay money for leaving the company without giving the notice.

A federal law adopted by nearly every state, it’s important for both employers and employees to understand the implication of an at-will employment agreement. Employees should understand what an at-will employment relationship means and how to protect their own rights before entering this agreement. Employers should understand the importance of the proper communication of this law, and the various exceptions that could get them into legal trouble if not followed accurately. According to Guerin (2016) “The law generally presumes that you are employed at will unless you can prove otherwise, usually through written documents relating to your employment or oral statements your employer has made.”

History

The history of the at employment will act came from “According to various legal scholars, the doctrine of at-will employment first appeared as a statement in a legal treatise by Horace C. Wood, Master and Servant § 134, at pages 272-273 (1877).” Wood cited four American cases in support of his statement about at-will employment. However, none of those four cases support Wood's statement. Apparently, Wood simply invented the concept of at-will employment, but wrongly described it as already accepted by the courts (Standler, 2000).

In its narrowest sense, the doctrine of at-will employment only speaks to when an employment contract can be terminated: the contract can be terminated at-will of either party. A separate issue is why. The employment contract can be properly terminated. From the beginning, the concept of at-will employment meant that the employment contract could be terminated for any reason by either party. The United States is the only major industrial power that maintains a general employment-at-will rule. Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and Sweden all have statutory provisions that require employers to show good cause before discharging employees.

 Beginning in the 1980s, employment at will came under challenge in the United States. Employees had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the rule for a variety of reasons. For one thing, a decline in the number of self-employed individuals—due, in part, to a continuing decline in the number of farmers—meant that most U.S. citizens worked for someone else. For another, a typical worker who was discharged currently lost more than in the past in terms of Pension, insurance, and other benefits. The Tennessee Supreme Court articulated the employment at will doctrine in 1884, thus endowing employers with divine rights over their employees. This doctrine has been, and still is, a basic premise undergirding American labor law (Summers,2000).

Exception to The Rule

Courts have begun to provide a protection by carving out exceptions to the traditional employment at will rule in tort and contract law. To protect against discharges for "bad cause," some courts have created a public policy exception to the employment-at-will rule. These courts have recognized a tort of wrongful discharge, under which employees can sue when their discharge violates public policy (Murg, Scharman,1981).

• Wrongful termination is the way employee can sue his/ her employer for. There are six situations for wrongful termination such as discrimination, retaliation, employee’s refusal to commit an illegal act and violation of the employment contract also protected leave. Here in Oregon there is the discrimination law which protect those categories:

1.  Sexual Orientation
2. Association with a member of a protected class
3. Age (18 or older)
4. Marital Status
5. Physical/Mental disability (6 or more employees)
6. Injured Workers (6 or more Employees)
7. Family Relationships

Then is the retaliation which is getting even, paying back, return - a reciprocal group action; "in return we gave them as good as we got" the theory behind it was an eye for an eye A law which sanctions revenge; to repay in kind. This line from Exodus 21:24 “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” is part of a longer passage in which the Lord sets forth the judgments and laws according to which the people are instructed to live.