How will anyone know if an employer fires an employee for an illegal reason? From the Wiki article &quot;At-Will Employment&quot;: At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish &quot;just cause&quot; for termination), and without warning,1 as long as the reason is not illegal (e.g. firing because of the employee's race, religion or sexuality). If I'm an employer and want to fire an employee for a reason like I ask the employee to do something criminal (or illegal but not criminal) like commit fraud or deal drugs or something against public policy or in retaliation against the employee for a protected action taken by the employee or family or medical leave or for reason of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability then why don't I make up some dumb whatever reason to fire the employee and thereby get away with discrimination? I mean, if I can fire an employee because, say, I was bored and I just wanted to fire someone for the hell of it, and if this is allowed, then why can't I make use of this to fire an employee for reason of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability? Edit: Something I thought of last night: ah well i guess that's why not everywhere is 'at-will' but personally i think if you really wanted to protect, say, people with disabilities, i figure there would need to be 'just cause' to really ensure employers don't abuse the freedom given in at-will employment Update: Azor Ahai -him- was right in this comment: It turns out that people dumb enough to fire someone because of their race are occasionally dumb enough to brag about it or make their intentions known. based on this question: Regarding a PhD Advisor Rejecting Student Due to Health Problems.
There is a rather elaborate three step analysis that is done in civil rights cases under U.S. precedents. Circumstantial evidence, as opposed to direct evidence of discrimination (which is less frequently available to plaintiffs), is analyzed under a three-part test created by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). STEP 1/prima facie case (burden on plaintiff) They belong to a protected class (or the person taking the action thought that they did and alleged acted on that basis) They were qualified for the job and performing in accordance with the expectations of their employer Employer terminated their employment The employer replaced plaintiff with an individual who was comparably qualified to the plaintiff, but not in the protected class. STEP 2 (burden on defendant) Employer must produce evidence that its actions were the result of legitimate and non-discriminatory reasons STEP 3 (burden on plaintiff) Employee must prove that the non-discriminatory reason(s) offered by the employer in Step 2 were not true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination based on age. In Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., 530 U.S. 133, 146-7 (2000), the Supreme Court held that “it is permissible for the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of discrimination from the falsity of the employer’s explanation.” Also, Reeves allows the trier of fact to consider the evidence used to establish a prima facie case of discrimination (first prong of McDonnell Douglas) when they are deciding the final prong of McDonnell Douglas framework. Notably, the Supreme Court later held that “[t]he reason for treating circumstantial and direct evidence alike is both clear and deep rooted: ‘Circumstantial evidence is not only sufficient, but may also be more certain, satisfying and persuasive than direct evidence.’” Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90, (2003) (quoting Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 508, n. 17 (1957)). The &quot;quote&quot; above adapts and closely paraphrases this source. A jury doesn't have to believe the testimony of the employer and discovery through depositions and written communications and historical hiring and firing patterns can all be used to provide evidence that the claimed reason is pretextual. There are more than a dozen tactics for proving that a claimed reason is really a pretext for an invalid reason at trial.
The spectrum of &quot;illegal&quot; is broad. One way in which racial epithets are (indirectly) illegal is via anti-discrimination laws, indeed labeled &quot;harassment&quot; by the EEOC Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy), national origin, older age (beginning at age 40), disability, or genetic information (including family medical history). Harassment becomes unlawful where 1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive. Anti-discrimination laws also prohibit harassment against individuals in retaliation for filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or lawsuit under these laws; or opposing employment practices that they reasonably believe discriminate against individuals, in violation of these laws. If an employer tolerates racial epithets, they are likely to be the target of a harassment lawsuit. There is no limit on who utters the epithet, thus a customer can be the trigger for a suit. In cases not involving supervisory employees, liability arises if the employer &quot;knew, or should have known about the harassment and failed to take prompt and appropriate corrective action&quot;. Analogously, racial epithets in educational institutions are actionable. Framed in terms of a random epithet by a non-employee or campus visitor (where the institution has minimal leverage over the offender), the institution must act, when it becomes aware of such circumstances arising, and cannot just say &quot;What can we do??&quot;. A second (remote) possibility is through the fighting words doctrine, that the government can limit speech that is &quot;likely to incite immediate violence or retaliation by the recipients of the words&quot;. This arose initially in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire – one of the holdings was that The Court notices judicially that the appellations &quot;damned racketeer&quot; and &quot;damned Fascist&quot; are epithets likely to provoke the average person to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of the peace. There have been numerous refinements of the doctrine over the decades, so the mere utterance of a racial epithet would not run afoul of properly-restrained &quot;breach of peace&quot; laws. One of the two most-relevant current opinions is Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, where the court held that the government cannot forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action but uttering an epithet is not advocacy of force or law violation. The second is R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 US 377 where defendant was charged with violating an ordinance that prohibits the display of a symbol which one knows or has reason to know &quot;arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender&quot; SCOTUS ruled that &quot;the First Amendment does not permit a state to use content discrimination to achieve a compelling interest if it is not necessary to achieve that interest&quot; (emphasis added), holding that A few limited categories of speech, such as obscenity, defamation, and fighting words, may be regulated because of their constitutionally proscribable content. However, these categories are not entirely invisible to the Constitution, and government may not regulate them based on hostility, or favoritism, towards a nonproscribable message they contain. Thus the regulation of &quot;fighting words&quot; may not be based on nonproscribable content. It may, however, be underinclusive, addressing some offensive instances and leaving other, equally offensive, ones alone, so long as the selective proscription is not based on content, or there is no realistic possibility that regulation of ideas is afoot. A further holding is that the law is is facially unconstitutional because it imposes special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on the disfavored subjects of &quot;race, color, creed, religion or gender.&quot; At the same time, it permits displays containing abusive invective if they are not addressed to those topics. Moreover, in its practical operation the ordinance goes beyond mere content, to actual viewpoint, discrimination. The court has not clearly identified a context in which a law against a racial epithet would be constitutional, they have simply identified other bars that would have to be cleared for such a law to be permissible. No utterance, devoid of context, is illegal, so to discover where such an utterance could be part of a prosecutions, we would need a lot of specific context in the hypothetical.
You can file a lawsuit of course. The question is whether you have any evidence whatsoever that they didn't hire you because of illegal discrimination. As you say yourself, they didn't hire you "for no apparent reason". It is entirely legal not to hire you "for no apparent reason". Without evidence of illegal discrimination that court case will go nowhere. Consider that there are jobs where 100 people apply, and a dozen people are interviewed. Getting not hired three times, when 12 people got interviewed, is just normal. If the same 12 people were interviewed at each job, then you and eight others were rejected each time, because there were 12 good enough to be interviewed, but only one job. Not being hired three times is nothing. Maybe instead of thinking of lawsuits, you might think of some training to do better in interviews. So not only do you not have any evidence of illegal discrimination, it's not even reasonably likely that there was illegal discrimination. Are you really claiming that all the three times where you didn't get the job you were the best possible applicant that was there? Did you check who got the job? Maybe it was a gay black jewish woman in a wheelchair who was just exceedingly good at her job? The point is really: Belonging to some protected class doesn't give you a right to get the job. It gives you a right not to be rejected because you belong to that protected class. It doesn't give you a right not to be rejected for any other reason. And being rejected without being given a reason is no proof, not even an indication, of some illegal discrimination going on. The most obvious and common reason for rejection is that out of all the applicants, you were not the best.
I'm not going to comment on what your manager is doing specifically, since I don't know all the facts. But in general: As a general rule, businesses have freedom of contract. This means they can choose to do business with, or not do business with, anyone they want. There are specific laws that create exceptions to this freedom of contract. The most important are federal and state civil rights laws, which prohibit many businesses from discriminating on the basis of certain protected classes, such as race, sex, religion, etc. In general, "locals vs. out-of-towners" is not a protected class, and therefore no law explicitly prohibits this type of discrimination. However, it's possible a court could find that "locals" is a proxy for some actual protected class--for example, if the hotel is in a city and the "locals" are predominantly Black.
Probably not. The impediment is the claim that you have a genuinely held religious belief. Changing the context a tiny bit, your employer is statutorily required to make an accommodation for the requirements of your religion, therefore they cannot fire you for refusing to work on the Sabbath, unless it would impose an unreasonable burden on them. If they fire you, you complain to the EOC and the EOC sanctions them. The employer's defense would be that you did not request a reasonable religion-based accommodation (you failed to explain that this was about Sabbath). The employer does not scrutinize the validity of your claim (does not demand proof of what your religion requires). In your planned announcement, you are not requesting a statutory accommodation from the government, analogous to requesting an accommodation from an employer, you are offering a defense in the case the government takes action against you for violating the law. There is a statutory exception to the prohibition against employment discrimination based on religion, that (roughly speaking) a church is not required to hire a rabbi instead of a mullah to deliver sermons. There is no statutory exception w.r.t. public accommodations and religious discrimination. Therefore, to implement your plan, you would have to have the law or the EOC's interpretation of it overturned as unconstitutional. To succeed in your argument, you would have to show that the law unconstitutionally restricts your free exercise of your religion. One part would be a demonstration that your religion prohibits... The least likely scenario is that your religion prohibits doing business with a person outside of your religion. I don't of any religion that maintains a requirement of absolute religious segregation, but that is hypothetically a path to argue – that you will burn in hell forever if you do business with a Christian, or a Muslim. I am maximally skeptical that the courts would ever take such a claim seriously. A more likely possibility would involve &quot;compelled speech&quot; as well, where you are forced under the law to express a viewpoint that contradicts your fundamental religious beliefs. You cannot be compelled by law to express a viewpoint. What is less clear is what constitutes expressing a viewpoint, see this. For example, there is a federal law withholding federal funds from schools which discriminate against military recruiters. Some law schools argued in Rumsfield v Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights that allowing military recruiters amounts to forcing the schools to express a viewpoint, but the court held that &quot;the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech&quot;. The upshot of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis is that &quot;The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees&quot;. A proposal to refuse to service Christians plainly does not fall within the penumbra of that ruling. Nor does a refusal to print books containing religious material (which you already created). You have to cater to Christians, but you do not have to create Christian messages. You could draw a line between a simple ISP who you pay to make available your religious website (you create it), versus hiring a company to design the website, which clearly involves &quot;expression&quot;. The issue is simplified if you don't make a claim based on a specific belief system, instead rely on simple &quot;compelled speech&quot; doctrine. General beliefs do not enjoy the same &quot;Free Exercise&quot; protections that religions enjoy. What matters is what you are &quot;expressing&quot;, not what you are doing (like, printing).
I limit my answer to U.S. law. The Right To Quit And Its Impact On Unemployment Benefits First, absent narrow exceptions (e.g. soldiers), any employee can quit at any time, from work with a bad employer. Normally quitting forfeits a right to unemployment insurance payments, but if the employee can convince the unemployment eligibility hearing office that the conditions the employer established were so bad that there was a &quot;constructive discharge&quot; the employee will be treated as having been fired for purposes of unemployment insurance. The employee can't get an advisory opinion on constructive discharge, however. The employee must act first and argue that there was a constructive discharge afterwards at risk of not getting any unemployment benefits if the employee loses. Occupational Safety and Health Laws Second, the employer is obligated to follow workplace safety law. Outside the mining industry (which does not include oil and gas work), workplace safety regulations are primarily promulgated by OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) which is a subdivision of the federal department of Labor. Many states have a parallel state agency. (The mining industry is governed by MHSA a parallel and much more powerful body.) Violating workplace safety rules established by OSHA can result in the employer being fined and being required to correct the situation going forward, although the amounts of the fine even taken together with worker's compensation packages, are often far less than the amount of liability that the employer would have in a third-party negligence lawsuit. The government and not the employee receives the fine paid if one is imposed. Also, OSHA is vastly understaffed and routinely ignores worker complaints out of sheer lack of manpower, since it is responsible for all safety issues for 98%+ of all employees in the entire United States. OSHA has protocols related to requirements for employees working in extreme heat that are discussed here. In particular, OSHA states that: Washington, Minnesota, and California have specific laws governing occupational heat exposure. Federal OSHA has a General Duty Clause (Section 5a of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970) that requires employers to provide a place of employment that is “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees.” The OSHA Technical Manual Chapter on Heat Stress establishes that OSHA uses WBGT to determine if a heat hazard was present. Thus, outside those three states, rather than having detailed requirements in a regulation, OSHA has general suggestions and provides a framework for evaluating heat related safety and occupational illness issues that gets evaluated on a case by case basis if OSHA asserts that an employer has violated these general safety requirements, which will be resolved in a hearing, if necessary, if a citation issued by OSHA on this basis is issued by OSHA and disputed by the employer. Worker's Compensation Third, the employer has liability without regard to fault for all work related injuries, illness and deaths under worker's compensation law. The employer has liability even if the employer didn't violate any OSHA regulations or standards. But, the recovery allowed is much more meager than it would be between strangers suing each other for negligence. It is largely limited to lost wages, medical expenses, and funeral expenses, although if a deceased worker has dependents, their dependent survivors are also entitled to worker's compensation lost income benefits. The existence of worker's compensation coverage, however, bars an employee from bringing a lawsuit other than a worker's compensation claim against the employer, however. Collective Bargaining Rights Of Unionized Workers Fourth, in a unionized workplace, the union could raise a grievance with the employer under the collective bargaining agreement governing the workplace which will universally require the employer to follow safety rules. If there is a dispute, these disputes are typically referred to an arbitrator in union-management arbitration. The arbitrator has considerable freedom to fashion remedies if the arbitrator feels that the safety rules were not followed. Neither side can appeal the arbitrator's ruling. If the employer does not follow an order from an arbitrator, this is converted to a court order at an ordinary court with jurisdiction over the employer and the court will make the arbitrator's order a court order which may be enforced under pain of contempt of court sanctions (including incarceration or punitive fines).
In england-and-wales there is no legal requirement, in the private sector, to advertise vacancies and employers can recruit whoever they choose as long as they do not commit unlawful direct or indirect discrimination and follow their own internal HR policies. Re: In the western hemisphere is it quite legal for employers to do things like... Exclude close family/marital relations of existing employees? YES Exclude internal applicants from consideration for jobs for which they have relevant qualifications? YES Hire non-local (here defined as those who can commute to work from their existing home) candidates in preference to local ones similarly qualified? YES Hire foreigners where they have suitable work permits? YES Summarily hire members of the business owner's family? YES as long as they are not &quot;phantom&quot; employees only put on the books soley to evade tax liabilities by, for example, paying a salary when they don't do any actual work.
You can always complain to the county. It is not obvious from your description that you have a legal case. One reading of the circumstances is that you did not have a job offer, you went there on the assumption that you might get an official offer after being "oriented" and interviewed. The interview did not go well, so they did not give you the job. Time and travel expenses are often borne by the job candidate. The alternative interpretation is that you had an actual job offer, and you traveled to the site as part of your employment (involving some training). In that first session, things went bad, and you got fired. If that is the case, then (a) you would be owed wages for that day and (b) there is a slim chance that the firing was not legal (there could be restrictions on firing employees in government jobs, in whatever jurisdiction this is). Your attorney will guide you (after you giving a more detailed explanation of the circumstances) in understanding whether you were fired, or not hired.