Employment at Will

Employment-AT-Will Doctrine

LEG 500 – Law, Ethics, and Corporate Government

January 29, 2014

What is employment-at-will and whistleblower policy? This paper will provide a better understand of what these policy is and how each could apply to the relationship of employer-employee in the work force. The employment-at-will doctrine avows that, when an employee does not have a written employment contract and the term of employment is of indefinite duration, the employer can terminate the employee for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all.[1] Employment-at-will doctrine consisted of three major exceptions, and they are called public-policy exception, implied-contract exception, and covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Each of these exceptions is adopted differently among 50 States in the US. However, Virginia only recognized public policy exception.

The Whistleblower Protection Act supposedly protects government employees from management retaliation, but the Supreme Court has ruled this protection only applies to government workers when the disclosure is not directly related to the job.[2] This is the first protection made available to protect free speech rights for federal workers that can otherwise be fired for reporting corruption. In October, 2012, Barack Obama signed Presidential Policy Directive 19, which extended the same protections to employees of intelligence and national security agencies, who had been excluded from the legislation by Congress.[3] While not necessarily protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act, private employers should be prohibited from firing workers after the worker has disclosed criminal activity to organizations like OSHA, EPA, SEC, FBI, or other similar organizations (False Claims Act). Whistleblower Protection does not always protect federal workers. The Supreme Court ruling excludes whistle-blower actions covered in the job description for federal workers. Job related issues must go through the hierarchy of the...