Lynne Gobbell was fired because her boss didn't like the bumper sticker on her car.
During the 2004 presidential election, Gobbell put a "Kerry for President" sticker on her bumper. When her boss saw it, he said Gobbell could "either work for John Kerry or work for me." Gobbell refused to take the sticker off her car and was immediately fired.
That's pretty hard to believe - unless Ms. Gobbel was working for Bush. Can anyone here speak to the validity of some of the author's claims? It sounds like - with the above example at the very least - wrongful termination lawsuits would punish such firing practices.
In most of the US, "wrongful termination" is an urban legend. In over 40 states, employment is "at-will". You can be fired for any reason or no reason.
The exception is for people working under a contract that explicitly spells out remedies for termination without cause. Almost nobody has a contract like this.
> The exception is for people working under a contract that explicitly spells out remedies for termination without cause. Almost nobody has a contract like this.
You can negotiate for it or look for a job with it if it's important to you. A secondary effect of making it harder to let personnel go is that it makes companies more cautious when hiring. I'm thinking of situations you get in places like France, where a company isn't sure if they'll need the extra personnel in a while, so they rely on temp workers or go understaffed so as not to risk having problems letting people go later.
Tangential: I think people feeling more comfortable freelancing and doing entrepreneurship and transitioning in and out of salaried jobs and freelancing and building companies will greatly reduce employee/employer tensions. Lots of people tend to think of it as "their job" as in their property and a huge part of their identity, which I think is bad for their personal and economic growth.
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From the article:
Lynne Gobbell was fired because her boss didn't like the bumper sticker on her car.
During the 2004 presidential election, Gobbell put a "Kerry for President" sticker on her bumper. When her boss saw it, he said Gobbell could "either work for John Kerry or work for me." Gobbell refused to take the sticker off her car and was immediately fired.
That's pretty hard to believe - unless Ms. Gobbel was working for Bush. Can anyone here speak to the validity of some of the author's claims? It sounds like - with the above example at the very least - wrongful termination lawsuits would punish such firing practices.
In most of the US, "wrongful termination" is an urban legend. In over 40 states, employment is "at-will". You can be fired for any reason or no reason.
The exception is for people working under a contract that explicitly spells out remedies for termination without cause. Almost nobody has a contract like this.
> The exception is for people working under a contract that explicitly spells out remedies for termination without cause. Almost nobody has a contract like this.
You can negotiate for it or look for a job with it if it's important to you. A secondary effect of making it harder to let personnel go is that it makes companies more cautious when hiring. I'm thinking of situations you get in places like France, where a company isn't sure if they'll need the extra personnel in a while, so they rely on temp workers or go understaffed so as not to risk having problems letting people go later.
Tangential: I think people feeling more comfortable freelancing and doing entrepreneurship and transitioning in and out of salaried jobs and freelancing and building companies will greatly reduce employee/employer tensions. Lots of people tend to think of it as "their job" as in their property and a huge part of their identity, which I think is bad for their personal and economic growth.
Nope, in most states it's legal. It was widely publicized, and the Kerry campaign wound up hiring her, if I'm remembering the right story.
Seems like a true story:
http://www.slate.com/id/2106714/