Question

Unit 9 Discussion Topic 1

Discussion Topic

Termination is more associated with legal action than any other employment practice. Review the sections in Chapter 18 on wrongful and constructive discharge and legally safe methods for conducting terminations and apply the concepts to the two discussion questions.

Topic 1: Wrongful and Constructive Discharge

Explain wrongful discharge and constructive discharge, and provide an example of each. Do you believe that employers should be required to follow just cause/due process for terminations? Why or why not? Explain your answer.

Unit 9 Discussion Topic 2

Discussion Topic

Topic 2: Terminations

What steps would you take as a human resource professional to ensure that terminations are conducted in a legally sound manner?

THE BOOK IS EMPLOYMENT LAW FOR HUMAN RESOURCES PRACTICE

Answer 1

Topic 1

1.Wrong full discharge and constructive discharge with example.

Wrongful discharge means that the service of employee is terminated illegally or without just cause. It means the employee can claim the damages if there is breach of underlying employment contract between employee and employer or against any labor law. Burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove that the employer fired him due to discrimination which is bad in law or other legal grounds like that of employment law.

Constructive discharge is a situation where the employee puts his resignation on his own as the work environment around him is made hostile. There can be various reasons for which an employee can be made to resign like giving the employee excess work which is not reasonable or can be justified or personal revenge of on employer resulting into bad treatment of employee at office resulting into his resignation.

United states follows 3-part test to determine whether or not a constructive discharge has occurred:

(1) Any reasonable would have found the condition of working as intolerable.

(2) conduct of discrimination of employer against employee.

(3)employee resignation is the result of harsh work environment created around him.

The California Supreme Court in Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., (1994), said that “to establish constructive discharge, an employee must plead and prove that the employer either intentionally created or knowingly permitted working conditions that were so intolerable or aggravated at the time of the employee’s resignation that a reasonable employer would realize that a reasonable person in the employee’s position would be compelled to resign.” If the claims of the plaintiff succeeds in court, he will get the compensation that one gets for wrongful discharge.

2. Employer should use just cause or due process for termination.

Yes, I believe that the employer should use just cause or due process for termination because even if the employment contract says termination is at will, the plaintiff can always challenge it on the grounds of implied contract, public policy or good faith and courts always tend to incline towards workmen or employee.

Topic 2

As a human resource professional I should make sure that termination happen in the proper legal way.

This can be done by having a proper employment contract between the company or employer and employee which covers key terms of employment like termination and other terms.

Formulate a clear policy of the employers’ organization that lists out the rule for employee as to what is expected of them related to their conduct at company.

Formulate policy such as sexual harassment and other policy which monitors the conduct of the employee. These policies have to be adhered by the employee and later they cannot raise issue on this policy.

Have the terms in the contract for giving notice to either party in advance if one wants to leave or terminate.

The severance pay and after termination benefits shall be clearly stated and leaves no room for doubt.

I will make sure that the employment contract even it is at will, termination clause or termination related actions is not against the public policy or good faith, law of the country.