http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp33.htm


Dorothy Jamison was fired from the job she had held for ten years as a supervisor in a Philadelphia nursing home after she called her employer two hours late to say that she could not come to work because her brother, with whom she lived, had just died. Other employees have been fired for refusing to vote as their employer wished.


Most people believe that they can be fired only for a legitimate reason. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Under an [old] doctrine called "employment at will," employers have the right to fire their employees at will at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all.


Employers have not been reluctant to exercise their unqualified right to fire employees. Therefore, employees who are not covered by . . . employment contracts are
never secure in their jobs and can be dismissed without prior warning, no matter how satisfactory their job performance might be.


How widespread is . . . unjust firing? One government estimate shows that, of the 80,000,000 Americans employed in the private sector . . . 60 million are employed "at will." 2,000,000 at-will employees are fired every year, and it is estimated that about ten percent of those -- at least 150,000 workers -- are fired for no legitimate reason.





5/31/94
American Civil Liberties Union