As you discovered in the readings, many employment laws focus on protecting indi

Question

As you discovered in the readings, many employment laws focus on protecting individual rights. In this discussion, you will explore your perceptions of how well the laws work. Based on your readings and your work experiences, do you believe that the laws are effective in balancing the power between employers and employees? Can employees rely on the law and related administrative processes to ensure the fair treatment intended by these laws? If you see gaps in the law, how would you recommend closing them?

Discuss whether employment laws have effectively leveled the playing field in terms of power in the employer/employee relationship.

Explain and substantiate your response with an example.

Explanation / Answer

Let’s start with the balance of power between bosses and workers. Here’s the news in a nutshell: If you work in America, and don’t have an employment contract that explicitly states otherwise, your boss can fire you, for any reason or for no reason, whenever he or she feels like it. This is known as at-will employment. Similarly, unless there is a contract that states otherwise, you can quit any time you feel like it, for any reason or no reason. That’s the broad picture, although there are exceptions. Employment law varies from state to state, and in some places employees have more rights.

The basic principle is that employers can act without restraint. But — and this is a big but — they have to accept the consequences of their actions. This can take several forms, but the one I have encountered is the need to pay unemployment compensation to discharged workers. In Pennsylvania, if I fire employees without cause or lay them off, I have to pay a large portion of their unemployment benefits out of my own pocket. The state pays the discharged worker, and then it charges me higher unemployment compensation taxes in the subsequent years until I have paid off most of that money. This is a significant cost — in 2009 my unemployment rate jumped from less than 2 percent of payroll to more than 10 percent. This is a powerful disincentive to discharge workers needlessly.

On the other hand, if I fire someone for cause, I am not required to contribute to their unemployment payments and the payments may be denied altogether. This is why I have an employee manual and why I take care to document the cause of discharge and the actual firing — it’s all evidence to be presented to the unemployment compensation referees in the event the employee files for unemployment insurance. Most discharged workers do file, because they have little to lose by doing so. Their payments start almost immediately and the process of adjudicating my challenge can take months. I have gone through this process twice — and won both times because of the evidence I was able to present. That saved me many thousands of dollars that I used to keep the business running (to the benefit of the other employees).

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