“Just Cause” and the Attack on Job Security

[marmar]

from Dollars & Sense:


“Just Cause” and the Attack on Job Security
Is teacher tenure obsolete? Or is it the kind of policy that should protect all workers?

BY RAND WILSON | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014


The United States is alone among industrialized countries in allowing workers to be considered “at will” employees and dismissed for any reason—justified or not—unless protected by a collective-bargaining agreement or individual contract. At-will employees have no job security. They can be fired for a mistake, an argument with a supervisor, a critical comment about the enterprise or management, taking a sick day, a complaint about working conditions or pay, or involvement in outside political campaigns—all activities that workers protected by just-cause contract language enjoy with far less fear of losing their jobs.

Employers who are compelled to respect just cause aren’t sitting still. For example, a California judge ruled in June that public-school teacher tenure and seniority rules are unconstitutional. The lawsuit that led to the Vergara v. California decision was financed by multi-millionaire David Welch and backed by a slick PR firm. The suit argued that low-income students performed poorly on tests because of bad teachers who were protected by tenure—not because of school underfunding, large classes, or poverty itself.

The state teachers’ union, the California Teachers Association, noted that the judge ruled against due process rights for teachers because of testimony that “3% of teachers are grossly ineffective,” a statistic the union says was invented. While Vergara v. California is under appeal and only applies to California teachers, the anti-worker forces behind the lawsuit promise more legal assaults on teachers in other states.

The New York Times editorialized in favor of Vergara. “The ruling opens a new chapter in the equal education struggle,” the editors said. “It also underscores a shameful problem that has cast a long shadow over the lives of children, not just in California but in the rest of the country as well.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0914wilson.html

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. I hate the "at will" employment concept

Employers should have to have *some* reasonable cause to fire anybody IMHO.

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Well, employees DO have the equal right to quit without reasonable cause ...

In case, necessary ...

But, sadly, I have heard this argument used to support the At-will doctrine.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. Really?

[starroute]

4. But if they do, they forfeit the right to unemployment

Employers, on the other hand, will pull all sorts of tricks to deny unemployment compensation after firing someone for no good reason.

I was once fired from a job -- mainly so they could hire someone 15 years young and pay them $15,000 a year less -- and heard afterwards that the bosses were going around trying to get other employees to say I'd been mean to them. They apparently didn't get very far with trying to concoct a case out of nothing.