Federal labor laws including the Fair
Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the Family Medical Leave Act pertain to
regulations regarding pay, working conditions, working hours, and unpaid leave.
Till this date there are no federal laws put in place to regulate the
disciplinary and termination activities of the employer. Handling discipline
and termination issues are totally under the discretion of the employer. Though
the federal government does not intend to intervene in the decision of the
employer in this connection, there are laws enacted to see that such processes
once initiated are done fairly. Federal labor law posters 2013 will surely have this regulation included if you want to take a look.
Employment-At-Will
Employers generally make the employees
and job applicants understand that their employment with the firm is at-will.
The expression ‘Employment-at-will’ means the employer reserves the right to
sever the working association at any time either assigning reason or without
assigning reason. In the same way, the employees also have their rights to end
their working relationship with the employer. Often, the employment-at-will
doctrine in misunderstood as a federal law. This is merely a guiding doctrine
pertaining to a standard practice to which the employers adhere to while
deciding to terminate employees on disciplinary actions.
Termination
The U.S. Department of Labor's webpage regarding
issuing termination notice to employees says that the FLSA "has no
requirements for notice to an employee prior to termination or layoff." Therefore,
some employee terminations come under the purview of the Worker Adjustment and
Retraining Notification Act, with due consideration to the size of the firm,
reasons assigned for terminations or layoffs, and the number of employees
affected by this measure. At the same time, WARN does not figure into the
employer’s decision regarding disciplinary actions or terminations of
employees. It only pronounces the processes and guidelines for employers to
consider while they lay off or terminate employees on account of business slow
down or closure.
Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws
The federal laws forbidding unfair
employment practices include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age
Discrimination Act of 1967 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Talking in the context of decisions connected to employment, unfair practices
might mean practices like issuing warnings to women while failing to discipline
men, or firing someone on the basis of his or her race or national origin. No
federal laws are enacted so far. However, there are laws that forbid employers
from engaging in unfair ways of disciplining or terminating employees.
Unequal Treatment
A few employers abide by formal
disciplinary process like progressive discipline under which usually they give
two to three warnings for poor performance, violating the company policies or
misbehaving at workplace. If a given employee is noted to indulge in the same
behavior actions for which he or she is served disciplinary warnings or
write-ups, then the company might decide to terminate his or her services.
However, employers need to implement the same set of disciplinary procedures in
all cases of indiscipline issues failing which they shall be accused for
unequal treatment. In other words, the department managers for instance should
not demonstrate inconsistent practices while dealing with discipline and
termination issues of same nature in two different cases.
Union Support
The National Labor Relations Act forbids
any discipline and termination of employees on the basis of whether the concerned
employee is a union supporter. Especially during the six-week long
representation campaign preceding a union election, NLRA requires that the
employers should not implement disciplining or terminating activities giving an
impression that the it was done since he or she favored a union support.
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