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Does the US have zero employee protection laws?? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by luthis to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just following on from this: https://lemmy.nz/post/1134134

Ex-Tesla employee reveals shocking details on worker conditions: 'You get fired on the spot.'

I'm curious about how far this goes.

You can't get fired on the spot in NZ, unless you like, shot someone or set the building on fire or something really bad.

But it seems that in the US, there's little to no protections for employees when their bosses are dickheads?

Also, any personal stories of getting fired on the spot?

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[–] Astroturfed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What the actual fuck are you talking about? Sue? For what? There are no laws about firing you. I once got laid off for absolutely no reason other than them restructuring and eliminating my position, along with many others to be more profitable. I got a pathetic (at least in my opinion) severance and was out looking for work with zero warning. That's what this guy is asking about.

You can't sue for being laid off/or fired. You can collect unemployment. You can sue for harassment, or being fired for retaliation or some specific other things. It's going to be a uphill battle every time even in those instances though.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it's for discriminatory reasons, yes, you can.

[–] Astroturfed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, that would fall into the "specific other things" I mentioned. A very small amount of the time you can sue for being fired for super fucked up reasons. Companies can just fire you for no reason whenever they want.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

I was trying to imply it's high risk to do that. Suppose you have someone of a racial minority and for the first few days there is ambiguity over whether the new employee is welcome. Then on day eight, they do something, get fired, don't understand what just happened, then there can be someone to look into if it was covert discrimination. Then something like finding out all the people who were fired randomly just happened to be of one or more certain minorities, and poof, a legally enforced shadow of suspicion has been cast. GoodWill comes to mind here.