What exactly is wrongful termination? Wrongful termination occurs when an employee is fired from their job due to illegal reasons or when the company has violated its own policies when they chose to fire the employee. However, over the years this type of employment contract is becoming less and less common. Today, a growing trend in business involves employment-at-will contracts. These are contracts that allow both parties to have flexibility. Employers can terminate their employees without any reason or simply change their wages and benefits if they wish to do so. Employees, on the other hand, can also leave their position whenever they want. However, this is not advised as it can hurt their reputation with future employers.
It should be noted that there are also a few myths involving wrongful termination. One of these includes political views in the workplace. If an employee is let go because they expressed their political view, it may seem like it’s unreasonable. However, there are only a certain amount of states that allow people to express their views at the workplace, thus making your termination legal.
Wrongful termination can be said to have occurred when an employee was discriminated against. Discrimination in this instance involves a wide variety of things, such as their skin color, gender, age, or religion. Another part of discrimination includes an employee’s actions. When an employee calls out illegal activities or speaks out about workplace issues they can be considered a whistleblower. There are many laws on the books that protect whistleblowers from being terminated for speaking out against the company.
Currently, there are no laws that specifically give protection to wrongfully terminated employees. There are, however, laws at the state and federal level that protect people from being fired over discriminative reasons. Therefore it is important to know your rights first before assuming wrongful termination.
