Labor Laws and Employment Contracts

Employment-at-will doctrine is a law that requires both the employer and the employee to either enter into a contract of employment willfully or terminate such a contract willfully. Under this law, an employer may employ an employee if the employer is willing to employ specific employees willing to accept the job under the given terms and conditions. Moreover, this doctrine allows the employer to terminate the employment contract of an employee for any reason even if it is not justified and without prior notice.

Similarly, the doctrine allows the employee to terminate their contract of employment with an employer without prior notice (Mixon, 2014). Some exceptions apply to the Employment-at-will doctrine. These exceptions include all situations in which the employment at will doctrine may not apply. The first exception to the employment-at-will doctrine is in cases where employees and employers have collective bargaining agreements. Employees who are members of the worker's unions have pre-negotiated collective bargaining agreements between the employer and the employee. These agreements stipulate the employee remunerations and increment procedure.

Such agreements also outline conditions under which an employee may be discharged. The collective bargaining agreements further cover an appeal procedure through which an employee can appeal if he or she feels the termination of their employment contract was not justified under the provisions of the collective bargaining agreements (Chuff, 2014). Therefore, the employer cannot terminate an employee's employment contract unless it is justified under the collective bargaining agreement. Moreover, such an employer may not reduce the salary of the employee at will.

This limits the freedom that the employment-at-will doctrine gives employers. Besides the collective bargaining agreements, an employee may have an individual employment contract that is binding on both the employee and the employer. This individual employment contract also forms a basis for exemptions from the employment-at-will doctrine. The individual employment contract stipulates an employee's remunerations as well as the conditions under which such an employee's contract can be terminated (Butsch & Kleiner, 2011). As such, the law requires the employer to follow the provisions of the agreement.

This limits the powers of an employer to terminate the employment contract of an employee willfully unless the circumstance of such a termination is provided for under the terms of employment. Another exemption to the employment at will doctrine is in the statutory protection. Some state and federal laws protect employees from discrimination at the point of both hiring and termination of the employment contracts. There are several categories of protections under both state and federal laws.

These include race, gender, religion, the status of the family, disability, sexual orientation, nationality and age among other factors (Butsch & Kleiner, 2011). These statutory exemptions limit the ability of an employer to fire an employee unless such an employer can demonstrate that such firing in no way related to any form of discrimination. Therefore, this protection limits the employer's ability to fire an employee that the doctrine of employment at will gives such an employer. Implied contracts also form a basis for exemptions for the employment at will doctrine.

Implied contracts cover the employment policies in the organization that describes the process of employment as well as situations that may lead to the termination of such employment opportunities. Whereas it may not be a written contract between the employer and the employee, such policies form an implied contract between the employer and the employee. The implied contracts protect the employee against unjustified termination of employment contracts and hence limit the freedom of employment terminations as provided for by the doctrine of employment at will.

Labor laws in the US holds that termination of an employee's contract of employment must have justifiable reasons. Therefore, an employee who feels that his or her termination was not justified may file a lawsuit to challenge such termination under the covenant of good faith (Mixon, 2014). Therefore, the covenant of good faith provides an exception to the doctrine of employment at will. In the case study provided, I will analyze three scenarios provided by the doctrine of employment at will and determine and the associated exemptions.

I will determine whether the cases warrant a dismissal. In the first case, Bill criticizes a company customer and disciplinary action is taken against him. However, he threatens to sue the company for infringing on his privacy since the customer is his friend. Furthermore, he had used his personal email albeit on a company computer. In this case, Bill cannot be fired under the doctrine of employment at will due to the exemption of the covenant of good faith.

As already highlighted, this covenant requires the employers to have a justified reason for firing the employee. However, the employer lacks sufficient justifiable reasons for firing the employee because Bill had a personal relationship with the customer and he used his personal email. Therefore, such criticism could be considered as non-work related and hence a personal one. Secondly, the employee is protected under the public policy that guarantees every individual a right to privacy. In this case, the company contravened Bill's right to privacy by intruding his personal emails.

Therefore, Bill cannot be fired on such contraventions and the exemptions of public policy protect it. In this case, I will take the action of reinstating Bill and withdrawing any disciplinary action against him. This will preserve the image of the company in public as one that upholds the privacy of employees. Moreover, it will attract competent employees to the company. This action is in line with the deontological theory of ethics that considers an action ethical if it is in line with an individual's duty to the organization.

In the second case, Mitch requests the approval to fire his subordinate. The underlying reason for this request is the secretary refused to falsify expense reports for Mitch. In this case, the secretary cannot be fired due to public policy that is an exemption to the doctrine of willful employment. In essence, whatever the secretary was required to do was against the law. By refusing to engage in unlawful activity, the employee is protected under the public policy. In this case, I will not approve the dismissal of the secretary.

By doing so, I will have protected many secretaries and subordinates faced with similar situations. This action is in line with the utilitarian theory of ethics that considers an action ethical if it does most good to most people. Lastly, Lori cannot be fired for being absent without permission when he had requested permission to attend a jury and was denied. Under statutory protections, an employee who is an attending a.