Employment-at-will is a term which means that the employer (or employee) can legally terminate ones employment, without cause at any time. It does not require attenuation, or that steps in the disciplinary process be followed resulting in termination. Even though California is an at-will-employment state, the company I worked for still had a process which had to be adhered to for legal purposes, because it was a target for lawsuits. When I worked in Texas for the same company, we did exercise the at-will rule, so people could be let go without a disciplinary process. Laws and regulations vary from state-to-state, so it would have been harder for someone to win a lawsuit in Texas as opposed to California.
One of the exceptions to at-will-employment include unionization. When employees organize to form a union, they cannot be disciplined, or terminated for doing so. This also puts them at an advantage because the union has collective bargaining agreements which protect the workers from being discharged without ‘good cause’. The Civil Rights Act further protects employees from being let go based on any protected status, so that discrimination cannot be used as a basis for terminating employment under the guise of at-will.
The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 protects whistle blowers. If an employee reports a violation with food safety practices, refuses to participate in unsafe practices or testifies about a violation, their employer cannot retaliate against them for doing so. As long as the employee has a reasonable and sincere reason to believe that the employer is in violation of food safety regulations, they cannot be held accountable or retaliated against for reporting it even if they are wrong.
One of the anti-whistleblower laws currently in place is referred to as the ‘Ag Gag’. This law prevents anyone from filming undercover video of animal cruelty in processing facilities and on farms. In 2008 after the largest meat recall in history, the meat industry realized how devastating these types of undercover investigations could be to their business. It was then that the meat and poultry industry leaders worked together to push state by state legislation that protected them from scrutiny outside of the government regulated inspections. They felt that the videos left room for misinterpretation of normal farm and processing plant practices when viewed by the public, which put them at an unfair disadvantage. Some states prohibit unauthorized filming all together, while others require that the whistleblower report and turn over any documentation and video evidence of animal cruelty within 24 hours, or face prosecution under the ‘mandatory reporting’ law.
The ‘Ag Gag’ is a perfect example of government backing up, or advocating concealment of possible unethical business practices. Things like this have to be backed up by evidence, when they make it illegal to obtain the evidence it’s as if the public at large doesn’t have a right to know about it, which means we may unknowingly be putting the health and welfare of our families at risk. It is also an insult to our intelligence to suggest that everyday people can’t tell the difference between common farm practices and animal abuse.
The ‘Ag Gag’ is enforced by state law.
