bus 311

Employment-at Will

Should the law allow an employer to fire an employee without a good reason? Conduct research to provide examples to support your position and use your own personal employment experiences when possible. Have you observed situations where an employee was fired? Did the employer give a reason? Do you believe the employer’s actions were legal?

Should the law allow an employer to fire an employee without a good reason? In my opinion, I think the law should allow employers to fire employees without a good reason.  According to the text, employment at-will means that employers are able to terminate ones employment at any time, for any cause - with or without notice. (Rogers, S. 2012). I think it’s harsh to terminate someone’s employment “just cause” but in actuality, that’s what the law says. On the other hand, if looking at the situation from employers’ point of view, one can clearly see the other side of the story which contradicts itself.

Should the law allow employees from leaving employers without a good reason? I believe most of us in this class would say “yes” especially if the new job offer is better than our current one (i.e., better and more benefits, more money, flexibility and promotion) I think it’s only fair that the law works both ways even though I don’t agree with it.

  Have you observed situations where an employee was fired? Did the employer give a reason? Yes, I’ve observed a situation where one of my friends was fired. The company did not offer any explanations about the employment termination. The only thing that was said to him was that company was cutting down and they had to let him go.

Do you believe the employer’s actions were legal? I would say that the company was in the right track. Companies are here for business, in order words; they’re here to make money. They have objectives, goals and budget. When companies are loosing money, certain steps must be taken in order to regain balance and get back on track. If that means downsize their personnel in order to do. That’s exactly what they would do. A great example of this is my current organization, which is the U.S Marine Corps. Now that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is coming to a close, the military must take steps to fix the personnel problem. Noted, that employees signed a contract with the military which means they cannot be fired unless of misconduct but the military has come up with several systems in downsizing its manpower. Some of the plan includes sixteen year retirement, tighter promotion completion, severe punishment which leads to being denied reenlistment and the standards have gotten stricter than they were.

But the great thing the military does is that they help people get a job on their way out.  The military tries to do their best in helping someone get a job once they get out but a private employer is not responsible for helping its former employee on getting a job.

 

Reference:

Rogers, S. (2012). Essentials of Business Law . San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.