Employment-At-Will: Good or Bad?

Kathleen Arroyo
University of Maryland University College








Employment-at-will is something that many states have adopted as law that
states an employer may terminate an employee without any reasoning unless they
violate discrimination laws. In fact, Montana is the only state that doesnt have an
employment-at-will law. An employer doesn't need to give the employee any kind of
reason why they are firing them; they can just let them go. This law also means that the
employee can quit at any time without giving the employer any kind of notice or reason.
Obviously, an employee cannot be fired because of "race, sex, disability, age,
pregnancy, or religion" (Bernardin & Russell, p. 439) because that would be violating
equal employment opportunity laws and then the employee would be able to sue their
employer for their job back and compensation.
Employment relationships are presumed to be at-will in all U.S. States except
Montana (ncsl.org, 2014). This means that even if an employee is hired based on a
certain contract; it can be changed at any time by the employer. The employer is
allowed to change the employees pay, time off, and benefits and as long as it still
meets the minimum legal amounts there is nothing the employee can do. According to
ncsl.org (2014), employees are essentially at the mercy of their employers and are
subject to being fired at any time for any reason.
Unions are very against employment-at-will for many reasons. One reason is that
there is really no contract set up when an employee starts work and therefore that
employee isn't protected, they can be let go at any time. Also, employees are not forced
to join unions as a condition of employment and unions are pretty powerless to
negotiate anything because there is nothing contractual between employer and
employee. Everything else that unions would have done in the past, like lobby for
worker safety and wages is covered under federal laws. This is one of the main reasons
union membership has greatly declined, especially in states that are employment-at-will.
Because many states have realized that at-will employment gives the employer a
huge upper hand, they have come up with a lot of protections where the employer must
show just-cause if they fire an employee. A rise in such alternative means of redress
has coincided with a steady drop in union membership in the private sector (Cornell,
n.d.). Because it has become easier for an employee to get their job back and the law
itself seems to be more on the side of the employee than the employer, unions arent
needed as much by the employees. Also, because employers have to have a really
good reason to fire an employee, they are just going to fight that much harder against
the unions to stay out of their business.
A problem that many people see with employment-at will is that essentially there
is no job security. A worker may feel a lot of pressure to perform at a very high level and
not ask for anything extra because they can be let go and replaced with someone else
who will do the same job for less money. It can give the employer the upper hand
because they cannot fire for certain reasons, its really easy to come up with a legal
reason for firing someone and hiring someone else. Because of this, many states have
come up with exceptions to the employment-at-will law to make it easier to determine
when an employer is illegally firing someone (Muhl, 2001).
Employment-at-will does have its good points. It is much easier for workers to get
hired because there are no contracts or unions they have to go through. They can quit
whenever they feel like without any kind of repercussions. Plus, the employee does
have the right to ask for their job back or sue if they feel like they were wrongly
terminated and courts have really been coming down hard on employers unless they
have a really good reason for termination and can back it up. Employers can use
employment-at-will to fire workers that are under performing without having to go
through extensive procedures or possibly even keeping that worker because they have
a union contract. This kind of competitive environment can get the best workers to apply
and be hired for the positions.
Another good thing about at-will employees is that at-will employees arent
subject to non-compete agreements (Lovering, 2014). This means that if an employee
gets fired by a company, they are free to go work for that companys competitor. They
dont have to wait a certain time period or anything. Companies can get around this by
making an employee sign a non-compete agreement but the employee doesnt have to.
This way they dont have to worry if they lose their job because they can immediately
apply to work somewhere else.
I think employment-at-will is a great thing to have but some tweaks need to be
made to it so that the employees and employers are protected from lawsuits. Because
an employer can terminate an employee without a reason, the employee can make up
any reason and decide it was discrimination and there's really no way for the employer
to prove they weren't discriminating. Plus, for entry and lower level employees, it can
really put them in a position to worry about job security because they can always be let
go. Ncsl.org states that even though employers may talk about long-term, permanent, or
a lifetime job opportunity, that doesnt mean there was a contract and the employer was
just talking about what could happen (ncsl.org, 2014).
Obviously this doesn't happen very often, but it can. There should be more
protections in place for each side so that employees and employers can still practice
employment-at-will but at the same time not fire someone because someone else will
do the same job for less money. Charles Muhl says that employers need to be very
careful when they fire an employee for no reason at all because if the employee sues,
the courts are going to want to know why the employee was fired and the employer
better have a very good reason (Muhl, 2001). Courts want to ensure the employee was
not fired for a discriminatory reason and its very easy for them to say they were.
The United States is one of very few countries in the world that practices at-will
employment. Most other countries have laws that make the employers enter into a
contract with the employee and that they cannot fire them except for good reason.
America has come very far from the days when people were working 12-14 hours a day
in horrible working conditions. These were the days when employment-at-will was
needed to help the employee so they could bargain for things like benefits and also that
they could quit whenever they wanted without fear of repercussions. Unions were
needed back then to protect workers. Now laws protect them and even though many
states are at-will, they have laws protecting workers so that employers cannot just fire
them for no reason.
Because the courts have been hit or miss when it comes to lawsuits against
employers, companies have taken a lot of jobs overseas. They go to developing
countries where the unemployment rate is high and people are poorer and desperate to
work so they will work for less pay and benefits and they wont complain about it. This
has a ripple effect in our economy and also with the products we receive. The quality
isnt as good and our economy isnt as good either.
In conclusion, employment-at-will is good but it favors the employer and that
needs to be changed so it becomes a fair bargaining table once again. Employment-at-
will is the law in 49 states, although most states have made laws protecting employees
so they cant just be fired for no reason. Unless an employee enters into a written
contract with an employer, they are considered to be employed at-will. This also means
that an employee can quit at any time, for any reason, and nothing can happen to them.
I think employment-at-will is good because employers should be allowed to fire
employees who are under-performing without having to go through extensive steps.
This way they can get an employee who will perform well and be competitive because
they know their job could be at stake. It also helps the employees because they can
bargain with their employer before starting and get a written contract, and they can
leave and start a new job with anyone else at any time.







References
National Conference of State Legislatures. (2014). The at-will presumptions and
exceptions to the rule. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-
employment-overview.aspx
Muhl, C. (2001). The employment-at-will doctrine: Three major exceptions. Monthly
Labor Review. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/01/art1full.pdf
Cornell University Law School (n.d.) Employment-at-will doctrine. Retrieved from
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/employment-at-will_doctrine
Lovering, C. (2014). Good things about at-will employment. The Houston Chronicle.
Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/good-things-atwill-employment-
34594.html
Bernardin, H. & Russell, J. (2013). Human resource management: An experiential
approach. New York, NY: Mc-Graw Hill.