The law on confidentiality and restrictive covenants are in place to ensure that employer’s business interests are protected. Employers may rely on mechanisms such as the confidentiality clauses and restrictive covenants to protect their businesses from damaging competition, disclosure of trade secrets and confidential information. The objective of these provisions is to avoid employees from abusing they employer’s business interests when the employment has come to end. The degree of protection provided to employers differs if the employee has ended the contract of employment. The implied duty of fidelity protects business interests and imposes a obligation employee must not disclose any information or trade secrets of their employers business.
So what is a whistle blower? According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a whistleblower is an employee who turns against their superiors to bring a[n] problem out in the open. BusinessDictionary.com states that a whistle blower is a person who discloses improper or criminal activity within an organization. Finally, under Sarbanes Oxley, “A “whistleblower” is someone, usually an employee, who reports an employer who has broken the law to an outside agency.” Under this very important act, whistleblowers are protected by federal and state laws. Employers may not retaliate against them for reporting misconduct.
I recommend the company should respond to the former employee’s charge of constructive discharge by first apologizing. This former employee has had a negative impact on their life do to our company, and an apology would not hurt the situation. The government has various laws and statues pertaining to constructive discharge, management needs to avoid anything that could be misconstrued as discrimination in the work place. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) refers to processes and techniques of resolving disputes that fall outside of the judicial process (Alernative Dispute Resolution Law & Legal Definintion, 2011). Legally, this could save the company bad publicity, a great amount of stress, and money that isn’t necessary to spend.
Mr. Walton is the junior employee and is the person that was terminated. His termination was justified by complying with the Company’s policy not Mr. Walton’s work history, contributions and disciplinary record. The language of the handbook pertaining to nepotism is purely semantics and the Company’s past actions for terminating employees who violate this policy are justified. These terminated employees were aware they violated the rule even prior to the policy being incorporated in the handbook. The parties Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Articles IV, Employee Handbook, Memorandum of Agreement are the
The company must provide safe working conditions free of hazards for its employees. OSHA law is to prevent workplace injuries, and the employer is required by law to provide protective equipment, procedures, and safe practices to prevent workplace injuries. If employee voice complaints of hazardous working conditions, OSHA is obligated to investigate. Employees can refuse to work if the conditions are unusually dangerous and the employers refuse to make the conditions safe. The National Labor Relations Act provides rights for the employees when there is concerted activity among workers that provide a
If NewCorp is stating that his job performance was unsatisfactory, it must be documented. He should have been placed on a corrective action plan as stated by company policy in order to give him time to improve his performance to a satisfactory level in a specified time period. If his performance did not improve, then he could be terminated. Pat may have a case under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 based on the decision regarding his dismissal. It was wrongful
Constructive discharge would apply if the company implemented a change that is so intolerable a reasonable employee is forced to quit or resign, that company would be guilty of illegally firing the employee. Constructive discharge is not relative in this case for these reasons: * Although the change was recent it was not so intolerable that the employee
Non compete agreements are defined as agreements between employees and employers so that an employee cannot compete with its employer after they are no longer working for them [ (Noncompete Agreement, 2011) ]. Non compete agreements are used to protect companies so that no one else can use their secrets, customers or any other information that can be used to compete against them. If an employee was to work for one company and learn the job from them then quit and go to another employer in the same field and use secrets or customers from the previous employer it would give the new employer an unfair advantage. There are many things to look at when drafting a non-compete agreement. First of all the agreement needs to be made valid and to be
Employment-At-Will Doctrine “In the United States, employees without a written employment contract generally can be fired for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all; judicial exceptions to the rule seek to prevent wrongful terminations” (Muhl, 2001). According to the 1984 case (Payne v. Western & Atlantic RR, 81 Tenn. 507) the court ruled on how employers can fire employees without a reason and this thugs began the Employment-At-Will doctrine (Repa, 2012). The case study provided for this assignment analysis the different managerial debates consider the recent hire of “Jennifer, a recent graduate” for an accounting firm. 1. Scenario involving skills, competence and abilities The supervisor has noticed the employee has not been
The court found that the facts were as represented, and ruled that it was, indeed, illegal disparate impact discrimination. Because Duke Power Company defended that it was appropriately using the requirements to assure a qualified workforce, and not as a means to intentionally discriminate, the court ruled that to do so would be appropriate if it could be demonstrated that the requirements were necessary for all jobs for which they were used as a criteria, or if they did not result in a different impact upon a protected class. In the subject case, it could not be demonstrated that such was the case, inasmuch as Duke could not respond affirmatively on either test. Blacks were impacted significantly more than whites, and the requirements were being applied to all, and not specifically to justified employment