Introduction
The doctrine of employment-at-will emerged in the nineteenth century in the United States in a climate of unbridled, laissez-faire expansionism, social Darwinism, and rugged individualism. It is often referred to as Wood's Rule, named after Horace C. Wood, who articulated the doctrine in an 1877 treatise Master and Servant. No doubt the title of the treatise says all that need be said regarding Wood's view of employment relations and, unfortunately, the view shared by most of his legal contemporaries (Mauk, 1985).
According to Wood, an employee must be free to quit at any time, otherwise there is the possibility of involuntary servitude, which is prohibited in the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The doctrine of mutuality of obligations then required a symmetrical right of the employer to terminate the employee at any time.
At- Will Employment: Definition and Application
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, i.e., at any time. A separate issue is why (i.e., for what reasons) 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 (Mauk, 1985).
Most employees of state governments in the USA are not at-will employees. And most members of labor unions in the USA are covered by a written contract, called a "collective bargaining agreement” that contains a clause specifying that their employment can be terminated only for just cause. This clause makes union members not at-will employees.
Recognizing that this rule of law is too harsh, courts in the 1960s began to develop an exception to the absolute right of an employer to terminate an at-will employee, in cases where the employer violated a clearly expressed public policy. The process of developing the public-policy exception to at-will employment accelerated during the 1980s and 1990s, not only with judicial recognition of public policy, but also legislatures passing statutes providing whistleblowers with protection from retaliatory discharge (Mauk, 1985).
At St. Thomas the Apostle school, we have a part – time Day Care provider, who works for our after school program and might be fired at the end of this school year. She has displayed unethical behavior towards co-workers, unprofessional attitude toward parents and students, and illegal actions by displaying negligence to safeguard students under her care. Therefore, a panel of several administrators has met to discuss the different legal issues that might arise before termination is announced to her this June.
In Laduzinski v. Alvarez & Marsal Taxand LLC, plaintiff was looking for a job with defendant, Alvarez & Marsal Taxand LLC. Plaintiff, Laduzinski, claimed that he was lured away from his job under false pretenses since defendants hired him to get access to his contacts. Nine months later, after plaintiff had given all his contacts, the manager of the Alvarez companies fired him because there was no work for him. Laduzinski brought a claim to recover damages for fraud in the inducement. The lower court dismissed plaintiff’s claims because plaintiff was an “at will” employee. After Laduzinski appealed, the issues were whether the complaint stated a cause of action for fraudulent inducement, despite that Laduzinski was an at-will employee; and whether the alleged misrepresentations were actionable statements of present fact or non-actionable future promises.
No greater obligation is placed on school officials than to protect the children in their charge from foreseeable dangers, whether those dangers arise from the careless acts or intentional transgressions of others. Although the overarching mission of a board of education is to educate, its first imperative must be to do no harm to the children in its care. A board of education must take reasonable measures to assure that the teachers and administrators who stand as surrogate parents during the day are educating, not endangering, and protecting, not exploiting, vulnerable children (Frugis v. Bracigliano, 2003).
Sloane. A. A., Witney, F. (2010). LABOR RELATIONS (13th editions). Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ
...lley, W. H., Jennings, K. M., Wolters, R. S., & Mathis, R. L. (2012). Employment & Labor Relations. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Throughout the history of the United States of America the continuation of misfortunes for the workforce has aggravated people to their apex, eventually leading to the development of labor unions.
Bennett-Alexander, Dawn D. & Hartman, Laura P. (2001). Employment Law for Business (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing. Downloaded February 4, 2008 from the data base of http://www.eeoc.gov
“Unions are about collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital” - Canadian entrepreneur, Kevin O’Leary. The American workplace has not always provided protections for employees. Until the early 20th century business owners held all of the power in the employee/employer relationship. Workers were subjected to extremely long hours, low wages and dangerous working conditions, with no recourse or protections. Organized labor over the last century challenged the position and power of employers and lobbied the government to create laws and policies that would protect workers and create safer working environments for employees. The majority of policies that today’s average employee takes for granted, such as the eight
I hail from Ukraine, the country that is still not a member of the European Union, nevertheless is definitely a European country. Therefore, I have always been interested in the EU laws, policies, priorities, regulations and so on to contrast Ukrainian reality with that of the EU states. Now I live and study in the country I have always had an innate and subconscious love to – the USA, the country known as the country of big opportunities. As the result, I became increasingly interested in the US laws and regulations, in particular employment and labor laws. To combine these two passions I decided to prepare a paper that compares the US and EU labor and employment laws.
The Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 was one of the first major pieces of federal legislation establishing the rights of unions and union members. This act granted workers the right to organize and strike without fear of federal interference (CSU-Global, 2013). Norris-La Guardia limited the ability of the federal government and employers to engage in anti-union activities (Fossum, 2012). Workers were no longer required to sign “yellow dog contracts” which prevented them from joining unions and allowed dismissal due to union membership (Reed & Bogardus, 2012, p. 419). Although it legalized collective bargaining, the scope of Norris-La Guardia was somewhat limited because employers were not required to recognize labor unions established by employees (Fossum, 2012). Even so, passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act gave workers a foundation on which to as...
Ethics and the Unions - Part 1. Industrial Workers of the World. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Dolgoff/newbeginning/1
Labour and Employment Law. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Publishing Company.
Labor relations emerged as response towards combating the economic unrest that accompanied the 1930 Great depression. At this period, massive unemployment, decreasing salary and wages, and over competition for jobs despite poor working conditions, was being experience; especially in the US. In turn employees were aggravated and therefore resorted to labor strike that often escalated to violence. To avoid such incident that could potentially harm further an ailing economy, the US government set precedent by passing their first related Labor relationship act, also referred to as the Wagner act. This act excluded public sector and some employees in the informal sector, farm workers to be specific. However, the progressive change in business and labor environment, necessitated changes in the labor laws to ensure they are more inclusive (Haywood & Sijtsma, 2000).
There are many laws protecting employees and employers against harassment and discrimination. Harassment and discrimination constitutes more than just race, color, and religion. However, employees fail to report harassment and discrimination due to the lack of knowledge about their rights. Three of the most important laws e...
Holley, William H, Kenneth M. Jennings, and Roger S. Wolters. The Labor Relations Process. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.