Legal Question in Employment Law in Michigan
Contract Termination
I was working as a contract production supervisor at a major tier one supplier. A accident happened in a different plant which caused safety to do a walk through on the whole site on the same night. I was confronted by a safety inspector that one of my workers were wearing tinted safety glasses and that was a violation of the safety rules. I told him that I had only been there less that two month and nobody ever told me anything about tinted safety glasses. He then instructed me to have him change them and then he left. He returned about two hours later with the Coordinator Director and she confronted me about why this employee had not changed his glasses. I had told her that I had told him to do so, and that I had got busy and forgot to check back. She then put me on suspenstion until further notice. The next day I was contacted by the contract company and was told that I was terminated. My question is do I have any grounds for legal action considering that several other employees in the same plant were wearing tinted safety glasses and their supervisor were not terminated. Also I was never given any shop safety rules or classes. Lastly three supervisor were fired that night one from each plant open (we were made examples).
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Contract Termination
Employers may terminate any employee or contractor at will for any reason. The reason for the termination does not have to true or correct. The employer is allowed to make a mistake - just as you would if you quit for the wrong reason.
A rare exception would be if you and your employer (who is actually the contract company) breached the terms of a written contract in discharging you without cause. This is almost never the case - especially since you had no contract with your employer's customer.
Another exception would be if you were terminated because you are a member of a protected group. If a simliarly situated contract employee was not terminated after committing the same infraction, and that individual is not the same (race, sex, age, national origin, etc.) as you, there may be a case of unlawful discrimination. Since three supervisors were fired at the same time, this seems unlikely unless you all had a protected category in common (e.g. age).
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