A Right of Fair Dismissal: Enforcing a Statutory Guarantee

Support for the concept that employees should be protected against wrongful dismissal continues to grow in this country. Yet, many advocates of protection have thus far refrained from venturing into the legislative arena. Even though the movement to achieve this protection is still at an early stage, it is not too soon to focus on specific proposals designed to translate ideals into protections. By failing to coalesce behind a single proposal, supporters have retarded the progress of the movement. Without a proposal for specific legislation, supporters lack a rallying point and legislators have nothing concrete to debate. This Article attempts to meet this need by providing a proposal which not only satisfies the criteria of those advocating protection, but also responds to the concerns of those opposing such a right.

Part I discusses the ILO Convention and its substantive and procedural requirements. Part II describes how these ILO standards have been implemented in Great Britain, a country with a labor law history and practice quite similar to that found in the United States, and highlights those practices capable of imitation. Part III explains how every state can implement ILO unfair-dismissal standards and British practices through existing state mechanisms. A description of the Pennsylvania unemployment claims procedure will illustrate that existing systems require only minor modification to accommodate the proposed statutory goal. This Article concludes that such a statutory guarantee, implemented at the state level through existing procedures, is both timely and feasible.