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Before you can understand employment laws, you need to understand a concept called “employment at will.” It is a very basic legal principle and it applies to almost every private employment case filed in the State of Oregon. You can think of employment at will as the canvas on which most Oregon employment laws are painted.

Oregon, like pretty much every other state in the U.S., adheres to a doctrine known as employment at will. The basic definition of employment at will would be something like: “An employer is free to make employment-related decisions for any reason or no reason at all.” In plain English, this means employers and employees are generally free to negotiate any rules, standards, policies, expectations and other guidelines they see fit. Employers can fire and discipline employees for any reason. Employees can quit whenever they please. Likewise, employers are free to maintain no rules, policies, etc.

Of course, there are rules regarding what employers can and cannot do. But it is probably more accurate to say that most employment laws are exceptions to the employment at will doctrine. Even though an employer is free to discriminate against employees in many ways (productivity, reliability, competence, etc.), there are are laws prohibiting employers from discriminating based on gender, race, religion, and status in other protected classes. And employers may be required by law to take certain actionsUnless there is a law prohibiting certain action or requiring certain action, employment at will applies and employers are free to do as they please.

Employment at will applies to more than just hiring and firing decisions. Under the employment at will doctrine, Employers are free to treat employees as well or poorly as they want. Employers can hire only their friends and may treat some employees more favorably than others. There is no rule against an employer being a jerk. There is nothing requiring a boss to be fair. Like life, employment is sometimes unfair. That is just the way it is.

So why would Oregon or any other state use such a harsh rule as a starting point? Simple – employment at will promotes a free market economy. We want employers to be able to hire those who are best suited for the work. We want employees to find the best possible work for their particular skills. Businesses are free to decide what they believe to be good for them. If an employee is not profitable, we want businesses to be able to replace that employee with someone they believe to be better. If an employee is working for a bad boss, we want them to be free to quit their job. We encourage competition and employment at will promotes competition (at least in theory). We want employers and employees to be free to negotiate terms of employment that work for both. And we want everyone to be free from too many governmental rules and restrictions. If there are too many rules, those rules create liability for those bound by the rules. Potential liability increases costs to businesses and discourages hiring, which are bad things. It’s a jungle out there.

As we’ll discuss in other posts, employment at will is just a starting point. Employers cannot really do anything they want. To the contrary, there are many other laws that are exceptions to the employment at will doctrine. For example, employers cannot make employment-related decisions based on an employee’s status in a protected class. Employers are also required to follow lots of laws regarding pay, working conditions, leave, benefits, etc. Over time, we have passed laws and implemented other measures that create basic rules that govern the employment relationship. But these laws and measures are not so much “rules” as they are exceptions to the rule of employment at will. And that’s why it is so important to understand employment at will.