They aren’t abused “sometimes.” They’re abused 90% of the time. They are abused egregiously. Especially at a time like this, when people are desperate for steady employment.
That certainly hasn’t been my experience in the workforce. Would you care to elaborate or provide cites?
I don’t see what that has to do with at-will. Proving that someone is not doing their job with diligence and skill before terminating them should be the responsibility of every employer. If they’re really a bad employee, there will be evidence: spend two weeks building up a file of on-the-job snafus, records of absenteeism, or proof of fraud, and then all’s fair. That’s how it works where I come from.
THAT is why at-will sucks. No one should be fired for having blue hair.
90%? Where do you get that? Also, unemployment is very low right now. With maybe one exception, all of the people let go at all of the places that I have ever worked have been for reasonable reasons.
What if the company is doing poorly and has to get rid of people to survive? I’ve been let go twice in my life because the company had to have lay-offs.
What if I own a small company with only a couple of dozen employees and I simply don’t like one of the people? Should I have to keep them on the job?
This stuff about firm rules about firing is rubbish. What if someone gets hired as the head host at the Ritz Carlton restaurant catering to people that want the most elegant experience they can have for special occasions. The employee has always known about dress codes and proper decorum. One night he goes crazy, dyes his hair blue and gets two nose rings put in. After a warning, he refuses to undo any of it.
What should happen?
Businesses are simply entities that want to make money doing what they set out to do. Employees are simply people that have a service to provide that business and they negotiate a rate and conditions for it.
How would you like it if you couldn’t switch your maid/yard service/auto mechanic/dry cleaner for whatever reason you felt like and were locked in unless you could prove that they had done some egregious harm to you? It is the same thing.
You don’t need at-will rules for that; there are lots of places that don’t allow at-will but DO allow layoffs due to downsizing.
As long as they do their job properly, yes. Work is work and you leave your personal stuff at home.
Then his appearance is interfering with his ability to perform his duties. I’m not against dress codes; I am against being able to fire someone for reasons that have nothing to do with their ability to serve their employer.
As long as they provide the service I pay them for at a level of quality that meets or exceeds my expectations, why would I switch?
Doesn’t matter. Maybe you moved a little farther away. Maybe your best friend opened a dry cleaning business and you want to support him, instead. Maybe you found out that 10% of his profits go to an organization you find reprehensible. Whatever the reason, isn’t that your perogative? Why should an employer be different.
One thing people don’t seem to understand about management is that it is outright stupid for someone to hire & train employees, and then fire them for frivolous reasons. It is a wasteful use of time & resources, and any business owner or manager who wants to be successful knows this. In my experience, businesses are more worried about good workers quitting than getting the chance to fire them.
In many jurisdictions that do not observe “employment at will”, (like where I live), that still ** IS ** a justified termination not-for-fault, it’s called some variation of for “business economy reasons” – includes also plant consolidations and discontinuation of product lines. Of course, the company had better have evidence on paper that this is what is happening. And the law requires a severance compensation.
Often, there is a lower-limit payroll (number and money) “floor” that defines you as a “small business” and waives the requirement of cause for termination. I would not mind, either, legislating that there be a standard probationary term (fixed by law if not agreed by contract) that creates no obligation to extend a permanent hire, and during which you can just let go the employee with no penalty “just because”.
The law in non-EAW jurisdictions tends to be that you **CAN ** indeed terminate someone “not for fault” – just that you then have to pay a severance compensation based on the prior length of employment of the terminated person. And conversely, someone can still quit-at-will, provided s/he forfeits the severance. I would not want legislation that forbade any termination w/o an adversarial process: that would excessively hobble enterprises, and probably hurt the individual worker’s right to just stand up from their chair, say “so long, boss, it’s been real” and walk out w/o a protracted row.
BTW, Shag, your example doesn’t work for employment-at-will: that maitre’d at the Ritz that has gone nuts and violated the dress code and *"After a *warning, refuses ** to undo any of it" is an example of termination for cause.
All I can say is that I fundamentally disagree with this. There are lots of valid and invalid reasons to fire someone, but the person doing the hiring shouldn’t have to justify the firing (beyond the current protected classes). I’m a firm believer in at-will employment; the person who creates the job (or is given the power by the company that does) decides hiring and firing decisions.
And before you ask, any company that let someone go because of sexual orientation would not get any business from me. But under the current set of laws I would defend their right to do so. I’m also working to get sexual orientation included in the list of protected classes. But if you want to use the “blue hair” example, I would support the right to fire someone for that reason even if it had no impact on their work performance. It’s a dumb business decision and will eventually harm that company in the long run. But it isn’t and shouldn’t be illegal.
But you see, if that’s the case, you won’t. Normal people don’t decide to switch providers of services just to be perverse – BUT when someone shows up who CAN do it cheaper, faster, better, or just friendlier, you DO want the right to switch. Just as you cannot place the provider of service in indentured servitude, s/he cannot do the same unto you in reverse. Now, IF you have entered an actual contract to get your plumbing/gardening/cleaning from this person for X amount of time, THEN you have to wait 'til the end of that time and see if you can renegotiate; fair’s fair. Sure, in the absence of a contract, it would still be nice to grant your current reliable provider first rights to sweeten their deal; but that’s more about our character than about their “rights”.
“Moving farther away” - what would be the analogy for an workplace? If it’s the same as “downsizing” or “relocating”, then those are both existing valid reasons for termination that I have no beef with. “Best friend” - that analogy is nepotism, which is pretty despicable. I would hate to live in fear that my boss might give my job to his golf buddy someday.
Everybody says this, but it never works that way in the real world, especially not in the service sector. It’s one of those “good management practices” that everyone like to pretend they live by, but no one does. Service employees are frequently treated as being utterly replaceable; in fact the chain retail store where I worked as a manager had a section in the handbook that specifically advised managers to remind employees that they could be easily replaced, in order to keep them in line.
Now there’s a word that needs to be used a lot more.
I agree with the OP, it blows. The private sector has the means and permission to intrude into everyone’s personal lives to an extent that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago, especially when it comes to what employers can exact in exchange for a livelihood.
That is fucking insane. I wouldn’t care about what they do at home. I’m talking about me not liking them at work. In this example, it’s MY company. Why should I have to keep employing someone who I don’t like? If the person did a great job, I might choose to keep them anyway…I probably would in real life…but why should I have to do so by law?
As to JRDelirious’s point, I knew that relatively small businesses are exempt from certain laws and I meant to address that. Thanks for bringing that up. Let’s amend that example to a 500 person company but the disliked person is a VP who reports directly to me.
To be clear, I don’t think that I would ever personally fire someone because I didn’t like them. It’s probably a stupid thing to do. I just don’t think that it should be against the law.
Also, despite my Libertarian leanings, I have no problem with certain groups being protected from discrimination, if there is a history of discrimination that justifies it, which there is with sexuality. If there ever comes a day when there is institutional discrimination against blue haired folk, I would change my mind about them.
I was fired 3 weeks ago under "at will’ employent law. It was implied that it was because business is slow but no specific reason was given and I was not laid-off, I was fired. No severance package, no notice, no anything. And this is not a mom and pop operation, it is a multi-national coproration. I was eligible for unemployment, sure, but it was pointless to even apply for it because it pays in a week about what I made in a day.
“At will” employment is complete bullshit.
(bolding mine)
This is where we differ fundamentally. I don’t think that a company is a toy, I think that for-profit companies have civil responsibilities that go beyond their own bank accounts/stockholders, and you don’t. That’s cool, people hash that one out in GD every day. I don’t go there because my debate skillz aren’t up to par.
I said ‘’…at home" because “not liking” someone is personal; it has nothing to do with their job performance. If their performance sucks, build up a file and hand them a pink slip, fair enough. I’m not expressing myself very clearly, am I. See? I gots no skillz.
Yes, I think at-will employment is a separate issue from the one OP raises. Here is a map from OPs link. Notice that New York has anti-discrimination laws to protect gays, but New York is an at-will state (so no protections for people with blue hair).
Further, even if you prohibit firing at-will, you could still discriminate against gays in the hiring process. Hence, this is more an issue of protection for a specific group rather than general employment laws. IMHO.
No. I agree with you completely. I just don’t think that our beliefs should be the law in this case.
I looked into it a couple years back but didn’t at that time score enough points on the entrance exam. IIRC you have to score a 71 or above to be considered and I scored an ironic 69. If only I’d paid better attention in French class!
True, I’m talking about a specific form of employment protection but “at will” laws give employers an easy out. As long as they can fire for “no reason” they can also fire in bad faith or with malice. Some states have exclusions to “at will” employment prohibiting bad faith and malice terminations but as long as we have “at will” and the employer doesn’t have to tell you why they’re terminating you - and temporarily devastating your livelihood, who cares?
Employers should be required to provide a reason for termination. If the reason is “I don’t like you anymore” and that’s legal, then so be it. But as the employee, I should be given a reason for my firing.