The furor over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys has me asking one question: has Congress ever heard of at-will employment?
It's a simple concept that most of us in the hinterlands live under. I live in Texas, an at-will employment state, and the argument goes this way: I can quit my employer at any time for any reason or no reason. My employer, similarly, can fire me at any time for any reason or no reason. In short, you are hired to do your job and when either you or your employer decide it's not enough, you leave.
I know there are states like California where they don't have this sort of employment arrangement. That's why a lot of employers (such as mine) have closed their California branches to open Texas branches. Contrary to what union backers will tell you, there's nothing terrible about at-will employment. While I've been laid off from a job, I always found a comparable job (sometimes the same job).
The mess with the U.S. attorneys has wound up with a spokesman from the Attorney General's office giving a detailed list of why the various attorneys were fired. It seems to me that this is as embarrassing, if not worse, than just accepting the firing and going about one's business.
I've been laid off twice (in California), both by the same company. In both cases they paid me a lot of money to go away.
ReplyDeleteThat said ... I usually expect employers to have a legitimate reason for firing people, and it's not clear to me that these attorneys were fired for legitimate reasons. On the other hand, I haven't been following it closely enough to know.
I've been laid off once and went back to work for the company (twice!).
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to follow this (although not as well as I probably should). I was skeptical of the reasons for firing these attorneys and figured it was political. I still think it is worse, though, to have an A.G. spokesman tell national television why you were a lousy attorney. :(
I can't imagine having that be good for your career, no.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia is an at-will employment state. the only requirement is that if the company lays you off or fires you, you must have the check in hand that day.
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