The Employer Bill of Rights: A Manager's Guide to Workplace Law

The Employer Bill of Rights

Since I majored in history in college, I thought it makes sense to start with a history lesson.

As far back as 1562, the English common law presumed that an employment contract was for a term of one year.¹ While the English rule was originally protected seasonal farm workers, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, English courts expanded the rule also to protect factory workers.² Under this one-year rule, English courts “held an employer liable for breaching the employment contract if he terminated an employee at any time during the year without ‘reasonable cause to do so.’”³ “To uphold ...