Editing Employment contract (section)

=== ''At-Will Employment'' ===
On the other hand, at-will employment does not require an employer to give any cause for termination. At-will employment is unique to the United States, as most countries require specific procedures for employment termination. At-will employment was considered common law in the United States prior to the nineteenth century as opposed to the standard employment law in England, which was the annual hiring rule or seasonal hiring. In 1877, Horace Wood wrote his treatise on employment titled ''Master and Servant'', which is considered by some to be the origin of at-will employment in the US. However, critics of Wood indicate that he incorrectly cited the cases to support his claim that employers can discharge workers for any reason. Shortly after, courts across the country upheld his claim (Pitchford, 2005).

There are several theories as to why at-will employment became a legal standard in the US. According to Jay Feinman in ''The Development of the Employment at Will Rule'', as a result of the Industrial Revolution and increasing economic pressures, courts adopted the rule because it favored employers who were trying to avoid mounting employment lawsuits. Employers did not want employees to have a voice because if they knew they could be dismissed at any point, they would be less likely to protest working conditions, wages, etc. At-will employment doctrine also maximized employers’ ability to decrease their workforce in times of economic contraction (Ballam, 1996).

A second theory, proposed by Sanford Jacoby, argues that trade unions were much weaker in the US than in England during this period, so the courts did not offer as much protection for the annual hiring rule. Additionally, white collar workers in England during the nineteenth century garnered much more protection from the English courts due to their higher status compared to white collar workers in the United States (Ballam, 1996).

More recently, Deborah Ballam argues in Exploding the Original Myth Regarding Employment-At-Will: The True Origins of the Doctrine that the employment-at-will rule was the norm throughout the history of the United States because the agriculturally based economy and labor market were not conducive to the English annual hiring rule. “Because of the extensive use of indentured servitude, slavery, and express contracts for specified terms, and because of the severe labor shortage, few laborers would have been in situations where the annual hiring rule could have applied,” (Ballam, 1996).