A company does not have to give reason to fire in an at-will state. If they don't say 'we fired you because you were discussing pay', then there is no means to prove that was the case.
No. It's nowhere nearly that simple; you can say exactly the same thing about firing someone because they're black, or because they complained about sexual harassment.
From experience (as a bystander), what really happens in a case like this is:
* Employee is terminated
* Employee believes they were terminated for a reason forbidden by state or federal law
* Employee retains an employment lawyer, who drafts a letter demanding compensation for the improper termination, citing specific claims of (say) sexual harassment, complaints articulated to superiors and to HR, and subsequent retaliatory firing.
* Employee does not necessarily prove those claims; they need only demonstrate sufficient facts and allegations to ensure that a lawsuit would not easily be dismissed.
* Employer almost invariably settles.
The two cases where employers don't settle:
* Employer is stupid, and believes that they will pay less to litigate a wrongful termination case than to settle.
* Employer is smart, and has an HR department that keeps excruciatingly careful records of things like sexual harassment complaints, alleged racially-tinged comments, ratio of black/white hires to black/white applications, &c, and is prepared to make it clear to employee's lawyer that the case will cost too much to pursue.
If you've ever wondered why smart employers go fucking apeshit when people make racially-tinged jokes, or why it's not necessarily in your best interests to bring your concerns to HR unless your game plan is to bring a wrongful termination complaint, there you go.
This is also the reason why, despite at-will status in basically every locale where you can hire people, "Performance Improvement Plan" is a euphemism for "slow-motion termination". The purpose of a PIP is to establish in the written record that an employee is a non-performer, so that when they're terminated, the employer can present evidence that there were reasons other than retaliation or discrimination.
There is another reason for a PIP: the employer thinks the employee has been doing their job badly but could do acceptably well. The PIP is the last available tool to get them back up to speed.
Most of the time, when your employer truly thinks that about you, they'll work on your improvement informally. I don't like saying this, but I think most people's best interests are served by the assumption that a PIP signals their employer's transition from "working to retain them" to "working to manage them out of the company".
In the places I've used PIP's we used them mainly on staff we hoped to get to a level where we could promote them. We didn't waste time on proper PIP's for people we wanted to manage out - for those people HR simply mandated no raises ever. They'd leave or gradually get cheap enough for what they delivered to be worth having around.
EDIT: It's worth noting that in these cases the staff in question also had clear evidence in the form of signed reviews rating them that they were performing well. E.g. the guy I spent most time on a performance improvement plan for was ranked "exceeds expectations" in every criteria three years in a row while I was there, and was given 15%+ raises each of those years. This was in Europe, but for a US company.
On the off-chance they're doing that because your performance is abysmal and you haven't improved enough from their informal intervention, if in PIP you managed to finally recover your performance, maybe they will let you stay a bit longer.
I was the recipient of a PIP at my last job, went through the improvement process, and at the end of it, my manager signed off that my performance had returned to acceptable levels. I left about a month later.
So why am I not still there? Well, in the process of going through the PIP and asking myself how I let things get to that point, I realized that I was quite capable of excelling at everything I was supposed to be doing, but I just didn't give a shit anymore. My subconscious had already checked out of that job and was telling me it was time to move on.
When I realized that, my reaction was to start looking for another job while bringing my performance back to a good level. We quit on good terms: they "hired" me back to consult on some problems that came up after I left; I helped someone transition into my old position and I have a job better suited to my personality.
By the way, you don't have to sign the PIP. In fact, you shouldn't, because if you do, you're basically admitting that, yes, your performance is indeed low and needs improvement. And that goes in your employee file.
The right thing to do is to take the paperwork and say, "thanks, can you give me a few days to review this?" and stall as much as possible while looking for another job.
If you're feeling especially ballsy (and very confident in your ability to find another job quickly) you can say, "I'm not familiar with these at all, and my grandpa (R.I.P) always told me to get everything reviewed by an attorney before signing it, so that's what want to do. Is that OK?"
Once the PIP appears, improvement has already failed. If your peers and manager can't fix your performance problem, his could some arbitrary HR paperwork process?
> then there is no means to prove that was the case.
It's called court. No provided reason does not imply a lack of reason, and (say) discussing pay on a public forum would certainly be relevant evidence, if highly circumstantial.
How so? At-will cuts both ways. In countries like Finland as well as France it can be quite time-consuming to switch jobs due to the fact you have to give three months or more notice.
That's leaving aside entirely the issue of how at will employment gives companies confidence to hire since they know they can shed employees if things go south.
If you are looking for an end run try binding arbitration, which allows employers to opt out of the legal system.
Because the employer is at a massive advantage. For an employee having gaps in employment is a major thing when it comes to future employment, and can have massive effects on personal finances. For the employer, losing an employee a bit earlier is rarely a major issue (and if it is, they can generally convince people to stay a bit longer by throwing cash at the problem).
It is less relevant in high-paid positions where employees generally have the ability to put aside more of a cushion, but for lower paid employees it can be dramatic.
There's a reason the long notice periods in large parts of Europe are a direct result of decades of union pressure.
> That's leaving aside entirely the issue of how at will employment gives companies confidence to hire since they know they can shed employees if things go south.
If this was a real concern, then we ought to see a persistent problem of high unemployment across the countries with long notice periods, but to my knowledge we don't.
> That's leaving aside entirely the issue of how at will employment gives companies confidence to hire since they know they can shed employees if things go south.
Maybe for unskilled jobs, but the idea that an employer will hire/fire employees at the whims of the market, and there is zero cost to this process does not apply everywhere. There can be significant cost to on-boarding people depending on the industry / position.
The issue is not on-boarding costs. It's statutory requirements or political issues that prevent companies from doing layoffs to respond to changing economic conditions. Layoffs are not impossible in countries like France but they are very hard to do and very expensive. France has a dearth of innovative small companies for this reason because you can't hire aggressively to try to get risky ideas to market.
The effect is that by protecting existing jobs you lose out on future ones. Over time this pretty much cuts you out of any industry where there are waves of creative destruction.
Employers have far more power in the situation. As I said, it's basically an end run around every worker's rights law there is. There might be some small benefits for workers, but, on the whole, it is terrible for them.
That's even better. You have a lawyer write a letter that it's because of your alcohol/sexual orientation/etc, and you'll end up with a settlement 6/10 times.
(I think the only state with a meaningful divergence from at-will is Montana).