Nero,
There is no basis for a lawsuit in federal court against an employer for an adverse employment action, except where there is a statute providing protection. Even now, my employer could fire me if he just did not like my bumper stickers.
Hi Dee18
I believe what you are referring to is the at-will employment doctrine, which allows a private sector employer to terminate an employee for any reason sans contract. And I agree with you there - you can be fired for something as seemingly trivial as your bumper-stickers with no legal recourse available.
However, this doesn't include public workers (and with recent court rulings, private companies that get the majority of their contracts from the public sector, or de-facto public contractors). It also doesn't include anyone who has a job contract, which is the majority of salaried employees.
where I see an interesting legal and political interaction is what employers put into an employees contract. The employers will try to make grounds for termination as broad as possible, while unions and individuals will try to place limits on their ability to fire someone. It's the same as it always has been.
As I see it, eventually someone with a contract stating that their performance will be based solely on at-work metrics will be fired because the company's monitoring software will record what they are doing while they are not being paid. The courts could side with the employer, or favor a narrow ruling strictly applying to that case, or they could make a broader ruling about off-hours monitoring can be grounds for dismissal. That's what I was getting at when I said that I think it will be an interesting few decades for employment law.
Oh, and just an FYI, my handle is Nereo, not Nero (the fabled lunatic roman emperor)
cheers
N
