Georgia is one of these states where an employer has the “right” to fire an employee for whatever reason they deem fit.
Does anyone know if there is legislation pending to banish this very unfair practice?
Thanks
Q
I doubt very much that an employer can fire someone for any reason whatsoever, in Georgia or anywhere in the U.S. A person cannot be fired for being of the wrong race, religion, or gender; nor can they be fired if they become disabled, yet can still perform their jobs, for example.
Of course people can be fired for not doing their jobs well, or if business conditions require people to be laid off. I don’t think there is any legislation to end this ‘unfair’ practice, nor any to end the ‘unfair’ practice of allowing employees to quit whenever they want to, for any reason they want to.
My apologies for using a misnomer. I should have used the term “employment at will”, which gives an employer or employee the right to terminate a contract at any time for any reason excepting the ones the previous poster has mentioned.
My intent in the OP was to ask if there was legislation pending which would prevent the abuse of this practice.
Q
Here’s a link to something I found on wrongful terminations (as it relates to Florida, I believe)…
Outside of the protected categories such as race, religion, gender, disability, etc., what states aren’t “right to fire?”
In California, a person can be fired for pretty much anything. It was once explained to me that being a Pepsi drinker in an office of Coke drinkers is a valid and perfectly reason to be fired here. Absolutely bizarre, but legal.
The misunderstanding here is that “employment at will” is new or a minority rule. As far as I can tell–I have been involved in employment law in four or five states, Guam, and Saipan–every state is an “employment at will” state. There may be one or two with small exceptions. For instance, in California, an employer may not induce someone to move there, and then immediately fire them. But the majority rule is certainly “employment at will.”
True, “employment at will” does not give the employer the right to fire an employee for “any” reason. It gives the employer the right to fire an employee for no reason at all. Employers favor this rule because if the opposite were true, every employee, could question the decision to terminate, claiming that a mistake had been made. This would, so they say, multiply employment litigation, and force employers to relocate.
Of course, any unionized employer deals with the requirement that it have “good cause” to terminate its employees. So the employer’s arguments may be overblown. But who has more money and organization, employers or employees? So the answer is no, nobody is even talking seriously about changing the rule. They probably never will.
Sorry.
It should be noted (as zimaane said) that the flip side of employment at will is the right of the employee to quit at any time, for any reason.
Thanks for that answer gfactor. After posting the above, I did a search on “Employment At Will” and came up with the definition which may be found here: http://www.legal-term.com/atwillemployment-definition.htm
Now, IANAL, and don’t know if this site is correct in its terminology, but it certainly sounds correct.
Welcome to the boards, and thank you for helping with my question! What prompted it in the first place was one of our own SDMB’ers being terminated from her position at a casino. Seems like that happens a lot in that career field.
Quasi
Yes. True. I once worked on a case in Saipan where the employment law was closely intermingled with the immigration law. Employment contracts were not at will. They were two years–period. If the employee quit, the employee was deported. Messy business.
In “employment at will” state, employers have vast discretion in firing, and may not need to show cause. We are all well aware that often valid cause does not have to reflect employee performance, seniority, or any other employee states [e.g. during mass layoffs]. A few states go further and explicitly give the employer to fire without any cause at all. One such law was recently stall in South Carolina
You are correct that employees have certain rights (e.g. I can’t fire an employee for not sleeping with me) and certain classes are protected under civil rights and other specific legislation. However, if you are terminated without cause, the legal burden shifts to you: you must prove, with a preponderance of the evidence, that you were indeed fired for a wrongful cause. This can be very difficult. The phone company in Georgia, for example, was charged with racially motivated firings, along with a host of other alleged racial harrassments and unfair promotion practices. Some cases were won and some lost, on very similar legal bases. Suggestive facts, like strong statistical trends in firing and promotion, can be given varying weight, and direct evidence (such as a smoking gun memo) is very rare. Even racially charged threats of firing, in front of testifying witnesses, have not always been, by themselves, sufficient.
Many people feel that “employment at will” (or some variant) should mean exactly at will - i.e. the employee is only entitled to the terms specifically spelled out in their contract or local employment law. Of course this can create opportunities for abuse (e.g. the boss who chooses to fire an employee isn’t the employer, but is an agent; the employing company must often stand by their decision to avoid legal liability, even if, on review, it seems questionable to management), but I suspect any position one takes on the spectrum from “right to fire” to “firing only for listed causes” is prone to abuses, if only abuses of the legal system. Even in “listed causes”, there can be substantial disagreement on facts or thresholds: a highly regarded worker who is repeatedly tardy or absent may keep their job, while a less regarded employee may be fired - in many cases, the fired employee won’t see that decision or underlying evaluation as ‘fair’.
Employers, on the other hand, may prefer to replace an employee if they feel they can find a better one, by whatever criteria. They may feel they misjudged the employee’s potential at hiring; the talent pool may have been tight then, but far more qualified candidates may be available now; changing conditions, management decisions, or experience with a project or philosophy may cause various traits to be valued differently over time, and that candidate might not have been chosen under current criteria.
It all comes down to who is ‘entitled’ to what. What implicit right do you have to your job (to be paid by an employer who would rather not have your services) vs. an employer’s right to employ, according to its best assessment of it needs. Few people would argue that an employee shouldn’t be able to quit at will -the courts have even held some specifically negotiated contract terms are not enforceable in that regard- yet, since most of us are employees, there is greater sympathy to limitations on firing, than to limitations on quitting.
I’m not saying either side is right or wrong. I’m just saying that it comes down to values, not strict logic or quantifiable justice. Legislative and judicial sympathy (even noblesse oblige) can factor into the law, as can the raw number of votes in an inevitably political setting. Similarly, companies are intrinsically amoral (inanimate) and management can often form very skewed, even shocking, judgements and values from the isolated perspectives of their jobs.
Many casinos are unionized. I take it that’s not the case here?
Georgia is an at-will state.
At will means no reason is needed to terminate employment.
Variouis state and federal laws prohibit adverse employment actions based on “bad” reasons, such as race, etc. Often, these apply only when an employer has a mininum number of employees.
There is no pending legislation to repeal the at-will doctrine. The legislature is not even in session. The only talk I have heard of this is to expand protection at the state level to sexual orientation, but this is unlikely. I believe Atlanta has an ordinance prohibiting this.
At-will employment is fair since one is always free to work under an employment contract that guarantees a minimum duration. But there is no law that says either party must agree to such terms.
The opposite of at-will would be a situation where the law would require a minimum duration without the employer’s agreement. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits a law that would place such an obligation on an employee.
My job is a very secure one, and my last evaluation earned me a sizeable raise.(If one can call 3.5% sizeable!:D)
My only concern is with the doctrine itself: Isn’t it out-dated and doesn’t it need to be re-evaluated as to its efficiency?
I understand layoffs and the reasons behind them (I was laid off from Lockheed back in the 80’s), but I just don’t want people getting fired for no good reason and having the employer say, “Sorry but the law says I can let you go for no reason at all. Don’t let the door hit you, etc…”
My employee’s handbook clearly states what is expected of me, but what happens if I encounter a supervisor who decides he/she doesn’t like me or my looks? Or in the case, of our SDMB friend they just decide to change dealers?
Thanks
Q
Isn’t the ease of hiring and firing one of the major reasons for America’s economic success?
I don’t understand this. Both parties have the freedom to enter into contracts at terms they can both freely agree with. Are you calling freedom a bad thing? They can agree to contract for a period of time or at will. if you want to have job security then demand a contract on your terms and see if you can find an employer who is freely willing to offer them. I just do not get the idea that otehr’s freedom should be taken from them but not yours. If employers are not allowed to fire then employees should not be allowed to quit and customers should be forced to continue to buy the products they make.
My friends near Reno tell me that casinos are awful places to work with absolutely no job security. Show up 5 minutes late just once and if you’re lucky, you’ll be banished to dusting slot machines in “Nickel Heaven.” More likely, you’ll be fired on the spot. Didn’t give the “mystery shopper” a big enough smile? Bye-bye.
If you’ve managed to stay there long enough to accrue benefits, don’t be surprised if you’re laid off a month before vesting. They’ve seen this happen too many times to count.
There’s a steady stream of people without roots arriving every day at the Reno and Las Vegas Greyhound stations, looking for a new life, perhaps a new identity, and there are far more potential new hires than there are jobs.
The ease of firing certainly contributes to the success of America’s labor markets. Simply put, if it is expensive and difficult for employers to fire workers, they are less likely to hire them in the first place. That is part of the reason why Germany, France, and Spain, for example, have consistently higher unemployment rates than the U.S.
- “My employee’s handbook clearly states what is expected of me, but what happens if I encounter a supervisor who decides he/she doesn’t like me or my looks? Or in the case, of our SDMB friend they just decide to change dealers?”
You are out of luck unless:
a. Your employee handbook can be read to suggest that there are limited reasons for which you may be terminated or a certain procedure must be followed in order to terminate you. Great in-roads were once made into the at-will doctrine based on this implied employment contract theory. The theory has, of course, been much restricted. Why? Too many lawsuits. Not too many lawsuits for me, mind you, but too many for employers and too many for busy courts. There are entire legal treatises devoted to this area of law, but the basic principle is that if the handbook looks like a contract, courts will treat it like one; and if the contract spells out the conditions for termination, then those are the conditions for termination.
b. You are in a union. Here again, you have a contract with your employer that spells out the conditions upon which you can be terminated. Your rights in this case will be spelled out by your collective bargaining agreement. They will be procedurally limited (you can complain to the union, which will take the matter up with management. If you aren’t satisfied with the result, the union decides whether to take the case to arbitration. If you want to arbitrate and the union doesn’t, you are screwed.)
- "At-will employment is fair since one is always free to work under an employment contract that guarantees a minimum duration. But there is no law that says either party must agree to such terms.
The opposite of at-will would be a situation where the law would require a minimum duration without the employer’s agreement. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits a law that would place such an obligation on an employee."
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with this. The “opposite” of at-will employment would be employment terminable for cause. Either party would need a good reason for breaking the agreement. There are plenty of examples of employment contracts that have a term and are terminable for cause. When law students study contract remedies, they learn that one cannot normally be awarded specific performance (the court orders you to keep working) on a personal service (employment) contract for a variety of reasons. But they also learn that breaching such a contract can result in an award of damages. That is where the Thirteenth Amendment argument begins to fall apart.
First, a run-of-the-mill employee probably would not be ordered to continue working if the employee decided to quit. But the employee might be liable to the employer for damages. And second, it would in no sense be involuntary servitude if the employee was. The employee agreed to work for the employer, right? This would be voluntary servitude. Unpleasant? yes. Unconstitutional? doubtful.
- “Isn’t the ease of hiring and firing one of the major reasons for America’s economic success?”
I don’t think so. In order to establish this, we would first need to talk about the situation in other countries. Do other countries have different rules for termination of employment? I don’t know the answer. I suspect that there is a continuum of employment regimes in different countries, and that they have little to do with the countries’ economic success.
Besides, I’m not sure that we all agree that America’s economy is a success.
- “Isn’t it out-dated and doesn’t it need to be re-evaluated as to its efficiency?”
Ok. I haven’t thought it through at a deep economic level. I’m sure others have. I would bet that at least once a year, one appeal is filed to each state’s supreme court seeking a re-evaluation of the doctrine. Thousands of law students discuss the doctrine every year; and at least a dozen economists make their living lecturing and writing about the subject. Do they have the right answer? I dunno.
But the doctrine is constantly being debated and discussed. People know about it. Terminated employees do not like it.
Here are some considerations:
- If we had another system, what would it look like?
a. If the employer’s power to terminate employees is restricted, who decides if the employer made the right choice? A court? An arbitrator? The employee? In our society corporations are allowed to excercise their own business judgment and their judgment is subject to very limited scrutiny. (And look where it has gotten us!!) If we are making an exception to the business judgment rule, how many other exceptions will we have to make? And what will the economic consequences be?
And what rules will apply to such decisions? What if the employer terminates an employee for stealing? Does it matter how thorough the employer was in its investigation? What if there is a personality conflict between two employees at a small business? Do we want to legislate rules for breaking up the fight? And who pays for the expense of doing that?
b. What about the employee? Must the employee have a good reason for quitting? What if the employee quits for no reason? Should we force the employee to stay on? (Nobody really wants this result) What if the employee can’t afford to pay damages?
c. What does changing the rules like this do to the job market?
There are cases out there where employees have had express contracts with employers that spelled out the grounds for termination. Lots of them. This type of litigation is expensive, and usually unsatisifying for either party. Look at the world of entertainment. You can find lots of examples of entertainers (who often have term contracts) suing to terminate them, or vice versa.
And again, look at collective bargaining. When you have a whole group of people working on a contract that can only be terminated for cause, a different group of problems arises. People say that a collective bargaining agreement “floats all boats to the same level.” This means that people who are very talented must be compensated (under a typical collective bargaining agreement) the same as mediocre people with the same seniority level. There is no incentive to excel; or so those people say. (This, of course, assumes that virtue is not its own reward, and people are not inherently motivated). But there is a kernel of truth here. Those who can beat market forces and create a demand for their skills may well leave a union shop because they will be paid better elsewhere. The employer can’t cut a side deal with these people to keep them on.
And when an employer knows that it can’t fire an employee at will, isn’t the employer likely to be more reluctant to hire in the first place?
Anyway, this is a complicated topic, and I have barely scratched the surface. I would love to work for a company that did not hire “at will.” I’m not sure that I would want to run one, though.
Come now. You are being a kinda Chicago-School, no? In what sense are we “free” to get these contracts. To the average Joe, they are not available. Joe’s choices are to be homeless or work at an at-will company. And he really can’t even choose to be homeless, right?
People who can cut these deals–do. But the average person is no more free to negotiate such a deal than that person is to become a Unicorn. Our recognizes that when bargaining power is uneven, terms may need to be ignored; or implied. That is what people are suggesting here. It is done in plenty of other areas of law. Simply pretending that “freedom” equals fairness or justice won’t work. And how about this. We are comparing the “freedom” of an imaginary entity–a corporation has no body to kick and no soul to damn–with the freedom of a living, breathing, suffering person. The imaginary entity loses; and I’m not losing any sleep over it. Corporations are created by the government, and can be subjected to whatever rules the government (that is, people) want to subject them to. Period.
casino gambling and nickel slots are illegal in Georgia. One member of the Atlanta City Commission has proposed legalizing casino gambling but I believe this would require action by the state legislature. The Atlanta City Commission has taken on weightier issues, such as apartheid, WMD, etc. so I could be wrong.