Lincoln Sen. Ken Haar believes workers need to know why they're being fired, especially in today's economy with downsizing and layoffs.
JOANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009 12:00 am
Lincoln Sen. Ken Haar believes workers need to know why they’re being fired, especially in today’s economy with downsizing and layoffs.
To that end, he introduced a bill on Friday that would require an employer to give a specific reason for termination. It would also give employees getting pink slips meaningful opportunities to present their responses to the reasons for the termination.
Haar said the proposal came out of the education arena, and is aimed at workers not covered by contracts.
“It’s simple, it’s good business practice,” he said. “It’s a fairness issue.”
Haar said he doesn’t know how often it happens that people aren’t given reasons for losing their jobs, but he knows it happens. And some of those people will come to the hearing this session to testify.
The bill has been tried before, but in the rush of other legislation hasn’t gotten too far, he said.
In 2006, Sen. Jeanne Combs of Milligan introduced a bill that proposed no public employees would be fired until they had been given a reason and the employees had the opportunity to reply. That time, the bill never made it out of the Business and Labor Committee.
Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.