bake - June 2013 - 14

labor front

Protect yourself
Under the law in most states, if there’s no employment

3: “Just cause” promise. If you tell your workers that they will

contract, workers are employed on an “at-will” basis. That

be ﬁred for cause only—or otherwise establish guidelines that

means employers have the right to ﬁre employees at any time

spell out how and when terminations will be handled—you may

for any reason or no reason at all, and conversely, employees

be creating an implied employment contract.

have the right to leave the organization at any time. There are
some limitations to “at-will” employment.

Beyond these limitations, it’s best to use a progressive discipline policy to protect against wrongful termination lawsuits

1: Discrimination. Under federal law it’s illegal to terminate

legitimate or otherwise.

workers because of their age, race, religion, sex, national origin
or a disability that does not inﬂuence their job performance.

While no federal or state law requires you to create and

Some states add other limitations—for example, in many states

follow a progressive discipline policy, courts often come

you can’t ﬁre someone over sexual preference.

down hard on employers that promise progressive discipline,
but fail to deliver it. In fact, many employee lawsuits stem

2: Public policy. You cannot legally terminate an employee for

from the employee’s perception that he or she didn’t receive

reasons that violate public policy. That means you can’t ﬁre one

a “fair” deal.

of your engineers for informing the EPA
that your company has been dumping
toxic waste in the river. By the same
By taking the
surprise out of the ﬁring,
you may lessen your
exposure to a wrongful
termination lawsuit.

token, if a court orders you to

That’s why the most reliable way to protect your organization
from wrongful termination charges is to establish a progressive
discipline system and make sure your supervisors enforce it.

garnish the wages of a worker
who’s behind on child support,

An increasing number of lawsuits have been ﬁled in which

you can’t ﬁre him merely to

terminated employees complain that employers have violated

save yourself the hassle of addi-

their own progressive discipline policies by ﬁring the employee

tional paperwork.

before working through all the rungs on the progressive-discipline ladder.
That’s why your policy should include language allowing you
to skip progressive discipline and ﬁre employees right away for
particularly egregious behavior.
While it’s usually your right to terminate at-will employees at
any time for misconduct or lax performance, a progressive
discipline policy lets you clearly communicate existing problems and need for improvement.
How it works: Your policy simply increases the severity of
a penalty each time an employee breaks a rule. Typically, a
policy progresses from oral warnings to written warnings,
suspensions and then termination. That way, employees won’t
be surprised when they reach the end and are ﬁred. By taking
the surprise out of the ﬁring, you may lessen your exposure to
a wrongful termination lawsuit.

14 < JUN 2013 | bakemag.com

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bake - June 2013

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