Employee At Will Labor Law

I propose that the Employee at will labor law be revised or abolished. I wrote to my state representatives about this last year. In their answer, they seemed more concerned about having too much government than they were with protecting employees rights. Here's a copy of the most recent letter I sent them.....Dear Sir,
I am writing you today for the purpose of asking that the “At Will Employment” Labor Laws be revised an/or abolished. I am a Veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom who has served his country honorably. Despite this, I have found myself to be the victim of poor treatment and wrongful termination on several occasions by several different employers, both in New Jersey and other states in which I have lived. I am unable to sue these companies because I am not gay, a pregnant a woman, a minority or a military member who was fired while he was serving on active duty orders (title 10 status).
Six years ago, I was offered and accepted employment as a Field Service Technician with Tecniflex (then, Bancsource) of Springfield, MO. This position was based in Lakeland, FL. I had told Jim Reeder, the man who interviewed me and eventually became my direct supervisor, that I would require training on certain types of equipment I would be tasked to maintain and repair contingent upon acceptance of employment. I began this job on July 18, 2011. I found it strange that for the first two days on this job, I did absolutely nothing despite being ready and able to go to work. Jim Reeder had made me a promise that I would receive training on the aforementioned types of equipment. In the two months that I worked there, I did not attend a SINGLE SCHOOL on any of this equipment. Instead, I began working with two senior technicians in an OJT (On-the-job training) status. They sent another technician, Dan Devore, down from their home office in Missouri to “train” me along with other technicians in the Florida market. I use the term “train” loosely because it was really a construct to set me up for failure. I say this because the “training” he provided was supposed to involve performing preventative maintenance on one of the ATM machines. He proceeded to take the entire machine apart. This is not how a PM is supposed to be performed. A “PM” normally consists of a cursory inspection of belts, rollers and other expendable parts of the machine and replacing them where and when it is necessary. When I was unable to put the machine back together, he reported back to his bosses that I didn’t know what I was doing and should be replaced. He never said a word of this to me.
I was terminated from this job on September 20th. Jim Reeder called me and told me he was letting me go. Hector Santos, my former co-worker, couldn’t believe that he was doing this. I had to repeat to him no less than three times that I was being fired. When I asked Jim Reeder why he was firing me, he cited three reasons. The first of which was that I was missing meets. Occasionally, field service technicians are required to meet other technicians in the field. I’m sure he was referring to the fact that I actually did not meet with Dan Devore on the day I was supposed to. Hector Santos had called me that day because he needed assistance installing a machine in Dade City. Whoever delivered the machine to the convenience store where it was being installed left the machine in the middle of the floor. I called Dan and informed him of this, and he said “no problem, I will be Lakeland for two days”. I met up with Dan the following day to PM the aforementioned machine at Sun Bank. The second reason he gave was that I lacked the mechanical aptitude necessary to effectively carry out the duties of my position as a field service technician. I find this hard to believe given the fact that I did very well on the Mechanical Aptitude portion of the pre-employment test I was given by Tecniflex. The third, and final reason he gave me was that a customer had called him and ask that I not return to that particular job site. When I asked him what happened, he told me “it’s not important, I don’t want to go into it”. I called their Human Resource Manager the next day to see if I could possibly get either some severance pay or reimbursement of moving expenses. He didn’t respond for two days. When he finally did respond, he informed me that I was being terminated because I had “lied to Tecniflex’ customers and members of their support staff on several occasions” and that Jim Reeder had “contacted me several times regarding this”. Not only did I not lie to anyone at anytime while at this job, Jim Reeder contacted me twice via telephone in the ENTIRE TWO MONTHS that I worked at this job and did not mention lying to anyone on either occasion. When I asked him who I had lied to and if it would be possible for me to reconcile with these individuals, he became evasive and wouldn’t tell me their names and/or locations because of liability issues. I find it frustrating that not only are my girlfriend and I out upwards of $6,000 in moving expenses, I am now in debt to the state of New Jersey for an unemployment refund of $2,995 in connection with the financial hardship which was created by my unfair termination from this position. I believe Tecniflex should be responsible for paying this refund back to the state. I also don’t understand why the HR manager and my direct manager gave totally disparate and dissimilar reasons for firing me. If they can’t reimburse me for my moving costs and/or provide severance pay, can’t they at least give me a straight answer for why they are firing me? At-will employee laws just let them off the hook in terms of providing any reason at all for firing me, let alone a made-up one! I have it on the inside track from one of the senior technicians I worked with that the real reason they fired me was that they had “frittered away” the funds they had in their training budget. Once they no longer had the funds to train me, they didn’t know what else to do with me, so they made up a fake reason to fire me. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the fact that the two most common reasons given for firing an employee is that they either a) lied to their boss and/or b) stole from the company. I sought legal counsel regarding my termination from this job and was told I don’t have a case because Florida is a “right to work” state. It sounds more to me like a “right to get fired on any given day for made up reasons” state. I guess “right to work” only applies to people who are fit the classification I described earlier in this letter (gay, pregnant woman, minority or military serviceman serving on active duty). If you are a white American male of working age such as myself, you’re just supposed to bend over and take it.
My girlfriend and I moved back to our current residence in Mansfield TWP in November of 2013. Shortly thereafter, I began a job as a Field Service Technician with a local company. The job appealed to me mostly because it was close to my residence (literally just around the corner from where I live) and they manufacture and service the density meters I would be working on, in-house. Companies like this tend to be more stable and less susceptible to lay offs. I was told by the man who hired me, John Cicalella, that I would be expected to pass some type of rigorous mechanical assembly training before I would be considered a full-fledged technician. I began this job in February of 2014. The first of several red flags that were raised when I was at this job was that they couldn’t decide on a start date for me. When I began this job, I was assembling and testing the meters that I, so I thought, would eventually be testing and/or servicing in the field. A little over a week after I started, I was told that they had ran out of work. I was soon moved into a different department where I was tasked with assembling cables, attaching heat sinks to the chassis of the density meters, and attaching the feet to the bottom of the units. I found it strange that my direct supervisor, Mark Mound, and John Cicalella had gone up to New England this same week to work on these meters and I wasn’t invited. I assumed at the time that it was because I was too new on the job and was yet to prove my meddle by passing this mysterious mechanical assembly performance test. I called it mysterious because at no time did John tell me what I was going to be doing and what requirement I needed to meet to pass this test. It’s almost as if this test was entirely subjective. I was fired from this job in March of 2014. When I asked John why he was firing me, he told me that Betsy Mintz, the HR director, had a letter detailing the reason for termination. This letter stated that there was a mechanical assembly skills requirement for this job and that the quality of my work “did not met this requirement”. To this day, I do not know what this requirement is and I don’t think they do, either. When I asked John which aspects of my job performance were sub-standard, he told me he didn’t want to go into a “blow by blow” which tells me he knows what he did to me was wrong and doesn’t want to admit it. Furthermore, he’s not required to give a reason because of the “At Will Employment” labor law. I also don’t have a legal leg to stand on in a potential wrongful termination suit. I find it ridiculous that they fired me because of my work performance when they ran out of work not a week after they hired me! How could they have possibly made a cogent decision regarding my work performance when there was no work to do in the first place? Alan Bautista, the man who trained me on how to assemble the meters, was stealing work from other departments just so he’d have something to do. It’s seems to me that they hired me for this job and then, didn’t know what to do with me. The day I was hired, I stood around in the assembly lab for most of the day because they had nothing for me to do.
“At Will Employee” labor laws are antiquated and not relevant in modern society. All they do is make it possible for companies to mistreat their employees and wrongfully terminate them, IMO. A closer look at these laws reveals that they seem to be written to address the issue of indentured servitude. How many people are working as indentured servants in New Jersey in 2017? These are just two of the companies that have mistreated me by taking advantage of this law. I could write a 20-page dissertation if I described all the times that this type of thing has happened to me. I included the job I had in Florida because it’s an illustrative example of how these laws exist in all 50 states. These laws have made it possible for these companies to wrongfully terminate me, face no legal consequence as a result of this action, and in doing so, leave me in financial ruin, I appreciate your prompt attention and action on this matter.


Sincerely,


Nicholas Bertram
Veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom