PUBLIC POLICY EXEMPTIONS, WHISTLEBLOWER STATUTES, AND GOVERNMENT WORKER LAYOFFS: A CASE AND ADVERSE EFFECTS?
MATTHIAS P. BECK
DOI: 10.2190/KG5V-PJNP-PGCA-R1HL
Abstract
During the past decade, a majority of U.S. states passed statutes aimed at the protection of public sector workers from unjust dismissal. Some researchers have argued that the threat of civil suits based on these statutes has created a deterrent against excess, unjust, and retaliatory firing. They implicitly suggest that collective bargaining agreements that provide for dismissal for "good cause only" and their enforcement through contractual grievance arbitration procedures have become superfluous. This essay proposes that unjust dismissal legislation encourages public sector employer to shift their personnel strategies toward a cumulation of dismissals, which makes individual discharges harder to contest. Modeling this strategy change as a behavioral function, I argue that unjust dismissal legislation can result in higher dismissal rates in the long run. I test this hypothesis by comparing the odds of being laid off in two early/strong versus two late/weak unjust dismisal adopter states over the three-year period from 1988 to 1990. The data, although limited to four states, support the adverse effects hypothesis for all periods and states investigated.
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