Unilateral Contracts of Employment: Does Contract Law Conflict With Public Policy?

Section II will state cases from each of these groups to show the reasons the courts gave for reaching their decisions and some of the decisions' consequences. Section III will explain how existing contract law should apply both to the initial creation of employment rights and to their subsequent amendment. An explanation of the rights' initial creation is included because in my opinion, it was their misunderstanding of this that misled so many of the courts into allowing the employer to reduce or eliminate the rights unilaterally. Section IV will show that the new contract law the courts in the third group made is inferior to existing contract law for the following reasons: (1) the benefits the courts claimed for it are illusory because existing contract law already provides them; (2) it is unjust because it enables employers to disappoint their employees' reasonable expectations and undercut their justifiable reliance with impunity; and (3) it is bad public policy because it deprives employers of a valuable means of attracting and keeping superior employees, and makes joining a labor union the only way that employees can obtain rights-as opposed to unenforceable promises-of employment security.

Section V will show that the law the courts made by misunderstanding existing contract law has these same drawbacks, plus the drawback of operating coercively. Section VI will offer a brief conclusion.