system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: At-will employment laws make it near impossible for an employee to have any protections from unjust termination.

There are certain things and attributes it is illegal to fire someone for. Mostly protected characteristics, like sex, race and disability, as well as protections from being punished for refusing unsafe work and the like. 

I think most people can agree that it should be illegal to fire someone for refusing undergo measurably unsafe tasks, or because of immutable things like whats in your pants and the colour of your skin. 

If you dont agree, this cmv isn't for you, thats not what im debating here. 

So my problem is that if I can fire someone for what ever reason, its too hard to prove why I fired you. 

Let's say I work just fine at my job for a year and my boss finds out I'm gay at an office party. I get fired the next morning. 

If not for at will employment it would be very hard to make a case that I wasn't fired for being gay, as nothing about my work output changed in the time between me preforming well and being fired. 

But with at will employment there are literally a million other explanations that can't be measured outside of my bosses perception. 

I just dont see how wrongful termination laws can be enforced effectively without removing at will employment.

Edit/mass reply: i agree there are disincentives to firing an otherwise productive employee, but I dont think that addresses how people are never perfect logical actors, and also how malice comes into play. 

Many people would gladly have to retrain an employee at a cost **if they believe being X (gay, black, muslim) is a detriment in and of itself** 

People who would fire someone for being Jewish probably believes they are untrustworthy and a risk. So to the anti smite its not an illogical decision.
gpt
The fundamental problem is employment is a mutual agreement between two parties. 

As soon as one party wants to end this agreement, the reasons really stop being that relevant. From that point forward, the employment relationship will be a bad one.

Now, we can talk about employee protections and we have many. How about we talk about employer protections too? How much leeway do you have to decide you don't want to work for them anymore? Should you have to have 'cause'?

Most people would find the last paragraph absurd. Employers should not have a right to force an employee to continue working against their will. And yet, in the very same breath, people will talk about how employers should be forced to keep employees they do not want working for them. It makes an interesting perspective.

At will employment basically gives the employer the same capabilities as the employee to terminate an employment agreement. (unless superseded through contractual obligations). By law, the reason cannot be an illegal one but like many things in life, trying to prove the motivation for an act is incredibly difficult. A smart employer knows the rules and creates documentation for the termination. That makes any challenge to the termination for 'illegal reasons'  a significant uphill battle. 

The reality is for most jobs beyond entry level, there is an investment by the employer in the employee and its not in that employer's interest to terminate a productive employee for superficial reasons. Hiring and training all costs money and few employers are interested in wasting money. Most large companies have fairly stringent HR processes for dealing with this. These are explicitly designed to defend against wrongful termination claims BTW.