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American employment law


Here in Ireland there are procedures when it comes to firing/letting someone go from their job. In most cases, first there is a verbal warning, a written warning, a final written warning and then an official meeting with HR, where witnesses must be present. Only in the cases of "Gross Misconduct" can an employee be fired on the spot and even then there is an appeal process, if he/she so wishes.

Just going by what I have seen in tv and movies, it seems anyone can get fired for no reason at all, with no repercussions to the employer. Is this actually the way things work there?

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Yes. I live in a "right-to-work" state, where one can essentially get fired for no reason. For having brown eyes.

I've never been fired, always left a job for another job, or another continent.

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Wow really? That sounds mad!!

I'm reminded of in Friends where, Chandler goes on a couple of dates with Rachels boss Joanne but it doesn't work out. A few episodes later, Chandler ends up sleeping with her. When Rachel finds out, she tells him to end things with Joanne because "the last time she almost got fired". It always seemed weird to me that an employee could get fired just because things didn't work out between her boss and her friend.

Is there no such thing as "unfair dismissal" or "constructive dismissal"?

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is "right-to-work" state something to do with unions?

and is not being with the union what makes them able to sack you for eye color?




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This explains it.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/righttowork-law.asp

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Yeah thats what I thought it was

"The right-to-work law is a fundamental law that allows workers the freedom to choose whether or not to join a union in the workplace."

..but then if you dont join a union an employer can sack you at will?
(and no doubnt the union boys will beat you up at the factory gates)

Thats some backward ass shit right there , I thought murca was an advanced modern 1st world country.

And yet here you are with corrupt union mob gangs holding industry to ransom
and zero workers rights laws?

Surprising from the country that invented compensation/lawsuit culture.

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It's a subtle way to discourage union membership. Corporations don't like it when the employees have rights.

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> if you dont join a union an employer can sack you at will

The flip side is that if you do join a union, part of your union dues will go to contributions to certain politicians. If you happen to like those politicians, fine. But if you lean toward the other end of the political spectrum, you shouldn't be compelled to indirectly support them.

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As indicated above "right-to-work" is something else, having to do with unions.

The term instead is "at-will employment" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

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It's commonly said that baseball is our national pastime. That's not true. Here in the USA, litigation is the national pastime. Anyone can sue anyone else for any reason. Lawsuits are fun! Sue a friend today!

An employer can dismiss an employee arbitrarily. But that ex-employee can turn around and sue for wrongful termination. For the employer, this means legal expenses during the discovery phase of the litigation; responding to the plaintiff's subpoenas, et cetera. If the case goes to trial the jury will at best be neutral, but more likely will be biased toward the plaintiff -- they'll be inclined to view the matter as the rich entrepreneur (or even worse, the big corporation) versus the little guy. If the fired employee is a woman and/or a minority, the plaintiff's attorney will certainly suggest and maybe even convince the jury that this played a part in the termination. And there's also the chance the employer may have to divulge proprietary, confidential information in the course of the litigation.

For all those reasons, unless the employer has a strong case, it might be well worth it to pay off the fired employee with a settlement just to make him or her go away. And, any smart employer will build up documentation toward a strong case before terminating someone.

Smart employers, that is. But there are a lot of stupid people out there.

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That's incredulous to me, that there would be an actual lawsuit of wrongful/unfair dismissal would AND go so far as to have a jury involved. Usually here, either there is a modest out of court settlement or the person gets their job back with a public apology from the employer. A lot of the time, whatever matter needs to be resolved, is done so by an impartial mediator in a small little office a not a bloody courtroom.

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To put things in a little perspective, at least from a anecdotal point of view, "at-will employment" has never been an issue for me. Generally speaking, bosses don't actually fire people for having brown eyes, or something similarly arbitrary, that's just a saying.

Sometimes (often?) the issue about whether the person was terminated for cause or not concerns qualifying for unemployment insurance payments. (You can be denied this benefit if you are fired for cause.) I had a friend who was told he was terminated not for cause, but because the employer wanted to "go in a different direction." The employer subsequently denied this and said it was for cause. My friend got a free lawyer (I think from a clinic at a law school) and won the case and got his unemployment benefits.

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> That's incredulous to me, that there would be an actual lawsuit of wrongful/unfair dismissal would AND go so far as to have a jury involved.

It's pretty rare here too, and not just for wrongful termination cases. Most civil cases don't make it to trial but are settled. Sometimes it's because one party (in this case, the employer) doesn't want to take it to trial, but sometimes it's because both parties don't want to go there. Trials are very expensive, and it might be cheaper for both sides to settle rather than to bear that expense.

I did a stretch of jury duty a while back. Here (Kentucky) the courts alternate month by month. One month is all civil cases, the next is all criminal, then it's back to civil again. We were given a calendar of possible trial dates and a phone number with a recorded message we could call the evening before to find out if a jury would be needed the next day. On almost every date during the civil trial month, a jury was not needed because the case had already been settled.

On the other hand, during the criminal month the jury panel had to assemble nearly every time. But there was very rarely a trial. When a defendant sees 70 fellow citizens, a judge, lawyers, a bailiff, etc, all ready to try his ass, the prosecutor's plea bargain he sneered at the night before suddenly starts looking good. So usually we'd assemble in the courtroom, there would be a few minutes of conversation at the bench, the judge would announce that "something's come up and we need to trash out some legal stuff in my chambers," they'd go off for an hour, then the judge would return and announce there wouldn't be a trial that day.

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Here in the USA, litigation is the national pastime. Anyone can sue anyone else for any reason.


I've always felt this. I see some stories from America and I wonder how someone can even sue for half the stuff I read.

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