They are absolutely contracts and people who don't treat them as such are just asking for trouble. I don't care what an employer tries to call it. Anything that has legal language and they're expecting me to sign my name on it is a legal contract and I treat it as such.
Every such paper I have received has explicitly noted the following, paraphrased:
- This is not a contract; any contract with us must be signed by the CEO. (Paper is not signed by the CEO.)
- You are an "at will" employee. The employment relationship may be ended at any time, by any party, for any reason, or no reason at all. There are no notice requirements, and any and all obligations of one party to the other are severed at the moment of separation.
- We may change the terms and conditions of your employment at any time. If you don't like it, you are free to leave.
As employment "contracts" go, these were slightly less useful to me than a roll of toilet paper.
> - You are an "at will" employee. The employment relationship may be ended at any time, by any party, for any reason, or no reason at all. There are no notice requirements, and any and all obligations of one party to the other are severed at the moment of separation.
When I made my comment, I was trying to get a handle on just why Americans don't think of these as contracts, and the quoted bit is why I think. An employment contract, to an American, means, for whatever reason, probably because that's how Europeans do it, that the company can't just fire you.
The fact that should the agreement ever turn up in court, it's contract law that will be used to adjudicate it, just doesn't register. Probably because lawsuits are so far away from the American consciousness, something only big companies with huge budgets do with each other. Or ambulance chasers or other such grifters.
About the only thing such papers are good for in court is as proof that an employer-employee relationship existed. You do what we say, and we give you money. It could be used if the employer did not pay you what you were owed for working, for instance, but there is not much else on the paper itself that is enforceable.
The only negotiable point is the rate of pay. The valuable consideration is money for labor. All other terms and conditions of employment are set by the employee manual, which is "do this, just like this, or we fire you".
I guess that makes sense. I've worked for a lot of small companies, though, so most of these I've signed have also been signed by the CEO. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to treat it like a contract if they wanted to use it against you in court, though.
