Employment at Will

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Recommended: Discrimination within the workplace

Employment at will is a law that is present in all fifty states in the US; although, in Montana there requires a stated cause for termination. Employment at will creates dissent among employees when they have been terminated for a cause that is thought to be unsubstantial or when no cause is given. There are pros and cons to the presumption, and employees and employers have different views. Employment at will means that the employer can terminate an employee at any time, for any cause without warning. However, even an at-will employee cannot be terminated because of discriminatory reasons. Employment at will also means that an employee can leave a job at any time without the fear of facing any legal consequences. An employer can also change the terms of employment without notice and no penalties. Throughout this paper, the two sides to employment at will will be discussed, and different examples of employment at will cases will be given. At its most basic, employment at will is not the best path because it can create feelings of violation and betrayal in the employee and can create a negative public opinion or loss of profit for the business.

In class this session, we discussed the case of a man, John Stone, fired for wearing his Packers tie at work where his boss was a fan of the rival team. In this case, Stone’s boss was a Bears’ fan, which was explicitly known at the dealership and by Stone. When Stone wore his Packer’s tie to the dealership one day, he was fired. Stone’s boss states that he repeatedly told Stone to remove the tie and that Stone did not comply. Stone retaliates by saying that he was in the middle of speaking with customers during these orders and his boss told him to continue with his job. Immediately afte...

... middle of paper ...

...ion, then it can be true cause for termination.

Works Cited

Dannin, Ellen. "Why At-Will Employment is Bad for Employers and

Just Cause is Good for Them ." Labor Law Journal . n. page. Print.

employment-bad-employers-and-just-cause-good-them>.

Farnham, Alan. "Florida Law Firm Fires Workers For Wearing Orange." ABC News 19 Mar

2012, n. pag. Print. workers-for-wearing-orange/>. Pfeiffer, Eric. "Law firm fires 14 employees for wearing orange shirts." YAHOO! News. n. page.

Web. .

"Salesman fired for wearing Packers tie." ESPN [Chicago] 26 Jan 2011, n. pag. Print.

.

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