Is it Time Yet for a Statute to End Employment at Will?: Lessons from the History of Workers' Compensation

Wayne Eastman

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DOI: 10.2190/EHXB-MN6X-79T6-BFDC

Abstract

Numerous proposals to end employment at will and restrict wrongful discharge suits have been offered. Advocates contend that employers have an incentive to support such legislation, just as employers had an incentive to support workers' compensation laws. However, such legislation has made little headway. This article takes a close look at the analogy with workers' compensation and argues that legislation to end employment at will is unlikely to succeed unless it, like workers' compensation, involves a broad shift in employment law with principled appeal to employers as well as employees. It suggests that provisions affirming duties for employees as well as employers have the potential to break the current legislative impasse.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.