Comment by sheepscreek
8 hours ago
She approached to ask for permission. If they had any reservations, that was the time to discuss them. She did what was expected of an employee. The fact that they blessed her and then went back on their word seems wrong.
Not a lawyer but my intuition says there might be some legal grounds here favouring the wife.
My take is someone even higher up found out later and did not like it. Now it’s entirely possible the individuals who gave their blessings were supportive of the party the wife was standing for, and the ones above them weren’t? Still whoever blessed the campaign did so in their capacity as a senior officer of the company. A total shit show nevertheless.
To the original commenter: sorry this happened to your wife. Hope she’s able to find another job that treats her right. Also congrats on the baby, hoping parenthood makes up for all of this and more. Sending the best of wishes your way.
AFAIK in every US state a company can fire you for any reason that’s not protected, and “we told you this was okay but changed our minds” is as good a reason as any in the law’s eyes.
In many US states a company can fire you even for protected reasons, and just fabricate a reason that isn't protected. Of course there are examples of people fighting this because it sometimes is a fight worth having, but the vast majority just have to accept being discriminated against and try to find another job.
I think Montana is the only state not "at-will"
Puerto Rico is technically not a state, but as part of the US, and counted in the statistics of the (federal) Department of Labor, I would also count it as a _not "at-will"_ state.
Correct. If she had something in writing, signed by a person with proper authority in the organization, she might be on stronger footing. But they could just find some other reason, or state "no reason" for her termination, and that's perfectly legal in an at-will employment.
If I ask my employer if I can start a YouTube channel and then after getting permission I start posting videos that make the company look bad, and showing how awesome competitor products were I wouldn't be surprised if I got fired. I wouldn't be fired for the account but what I did with it.
We don’t know if the person did any such thing (bad mouth the company or its products).
However, in the scenario they did, then the company would have grounds to fire them.