The Great Recession from December 2007 to June 2009 is associated with a dramatic weakening of the labor market from which the labor market is now only slowly recovering. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high and durations of unemployment are unprecedentedly long. I use data from the Displaced Workers Survey (DWS) from 1984-2010 to…

Due process in employment practices is guaranteed to school employees to the extent that they have constitutionally protected liberty and property interests in their employment. This paper reviews the responsibilities of school business officials at every stage in the employment process, from the original application for employment through…

To examine some of the psychological issues inherent in the employee termination process and the role of the psychologist in addressing these issues, five-question surveys were completed by approximately 60 human resources administrators in business organizations and interviews were conducted with approximately 10 human resource managers. The…

This report considers the differences among displacement, outplacement, and inplacement and looks at the risks, benefits, and costs of each. Displacement is defined as the termination of employment with little attention given to corporate or individual needs. Outplacement is defined as the pre-planned management of employee termination, addressing…

The exit interview, while widely practiced, has been largely ignored as an instrument for organizational change. A review of the literature reveals that eight out of ten firms in the United States use exit interviews to control attrition and identify areas where changes need to be instituted. Persuading an employee to tell the truth about why he…

The authority of the First Amendment may transcend the strictures of its original wording, which limits it to proscriptions of federal government suppression of speech. Attempts by some courts to extend First Amendment authority to the workplace is clearly related to the growing criticism of unrestrained managerial dismissal power. The first major…

Principals today are expected to competently perform a variety of roles, particularly those of instructional leader and school manager, under increasing public scrutiny. In general, the school principal has few statutory protections and limited constitutional due-process rights. The problem is that in many cases, principals' employment contracts…

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefanic have examined a series of legal decisions they consider to be "serious moral errors,""embarrassingly inhumane decisions," and "moral abominations." Departing from their exploration of bad judicial decision making, this paper points out some examples of bad decision making in higher education. It identifies four…

This year's session adopted new standards such as maintenance of migrant workers' social security rights, protection of workers against unjustified dismissal, and vocational rehabilitation. This article describes the conference's examination of these technical agenda items, and its annual review of the application of Conventions and…

The Canadian concept of "natural justice" is equivalent to "due process" in the United States. This paper traces the evolution of natural justice from English common law to its function in present day Canadian law. The extension of natural justice to school board employees is discussed. The paper points out that although in the…

Although Mississippi has no statutes for granting tenure to public school employees, state laws passed in 1953, 1974, and 1977 do provide for due process in case of teacher suspension or dismissal. To determine to what extent the state's 153 public school districts were implementing employee due process under the 1977 "School Employment…

A case review study of court decisions concerning public employees' constitutional right of free speech yields conflicting and sometimes disturbing results. The most often cited precedent in these decisions is the 1968 Supreme Court ruling in "Pickering v. Board of Education" in which a letter from a school teacher to a newspaper…

A six-state depiction study of dislocated workers in the Pacific Northwest involved interviews at six selected sites and a questionnaire survey of 138 dislocated workers. Data were obtained from structured interviews with employers, union representatives, employment service staff, educators, ongoing service agencies, and emergency assistance…

In addition to organizational liability, deans and department chairs can be held personally liable for their actions in certain circumstances. To avoid liability from hiring and firing employees and responding to complaints of sexual harassment, the two major areas in which deans and department chairs are often involved, strategies and guidelines…

This paper addresses the legal issues surrounding a university or college's action of dismissing tenured faculty members because of the school's troubled financial condition or program discontinuance. It explores various legal principles through an examination of specific questions. These questions are: (1) How do the courts define financial…