Advantages and Disadvantages of Affirmative Action and Employment at Will

Running head: LAW
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Introduction
Employment at will signifies a concept under which the employment of a person can
be brought to an end by the employer at any time and without any warning, explanation or
reason. This also signifies that the employee also has the right to bring the employment to an
end at any time. The concept of employment at will have gained popularity overtime. This
concept provides a significant level of flexibility to the employee and the employer. It
ensures that both the parties can participate in a comfortable and fair working environment
without owing any significant commitment to one another. However there are also several
disadvantages of the concept such as no respect being provided to employment rights (Crosta,
2017).
Affirmative action is the process is which preference is provided to selection or
promotion of a minority group who has a history of discrimination. The groups which may be
included in relation to an affirmative action are based selected based on race, gender or
ethnicity. However such may only be acted upon when there is comparison in quality
between the candidates. The advantages of this system may include the promotion of a
disadvantaged group but also have a disadvantage in relation to encouraging discrimination
against the others (Hodges, 2018).
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the concepts of affirmative action
and employment at will by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of both the
principles.
Employment at will
According to Guz v. Bechtel National, Inc., 24 Cal. 4th 317, 8 P.3d 1089, 100 Cal.
Rptr. 2d 352 (2000) employment at will is a term recognized by the U.S labor law in relation

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to which the relationship of employment can be brought to an end by the employer without
providing any just cause in relation to the termination unless the cause of termination is not
illegal such as termination due to race of the employee.
In the case of Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915) it had been ruled by the court
that when the employee consents to the term of being hired at will the courts may deny the
employee to claim any loss arising out of the dismissal. The rule court justified the rule that
the term also allows the employee to leave the job ay time they want without giving notice.
However in the same case the dissenting judge stated that the practice is unfair as it comes
with no or inequality of bargaining power. The concept became a well established rule under
common law regarding employment contracts in most of the US states by the 19th century.
The Supreme Court also accepted the principle during the lochner era in the case of Adair v.
United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908). However an increasing number of restrictions had been
added by many states by the 20th century leading to the modification of the rule (Fraser,
Osborne & Sibley, 2015).
There are various disadvantages of employment at will for both the employee and the
employer. In relation to the employee the disadvantages include increased stress over finance,
lack of job security and work place conflicts. Job security has been defined as the feeling by
an employee that he or she is a part of a company and belongs there. They believe that they
have a part to play in the long term success of an organization. employees who are under a
contract of employment at will are cautious in relation to a feeling of job security as they
employment can be brought to an end any time without any fair or just cause. This is a
disadvantage because an employee cannot be protected from termination or layoff which
creates a culture of fear within the employee. Another disadvantage suffered by the
employees in relation to employment at will is that of high financial stress. Employees owing
financial obligations at home may find employment a will a frightening concept. The