Denver Employment Law Blog

No employee in the Denver area wants to get the dreaded call in to the boss's office or up to human resources for an unspecified conversation or, worse, a conversation about their future at the company. These sorts of conversations usually end with the employee's getting terminated, either for cause or otherwise.

Employers too, although perhaps for different reasons, rarely find it best to fire an employee they spent time and money to train.

Businesses are under constant pressure to increase their profits year after year. That can be particularly difficult, as the economy changes and evolves over time. Demands for goods and services ebb and wane, and even the best company can't perpetually turn record-breaking profits.

Unfortunately, obligations to shareholders and investors can sometimes outweigh an employer's sense of duty or obligation to its employees or even to the law. Companies may engage in questionable or even illegal tactics to reduce their operating expenses and increase their profit margin. That could mean firing employees who make more (usually older workers) to replace them with lower-paid staff.

Most company executives and mid-level managers are expected to sign non-compete agreements as a condition of their hire or continued employment. It's a reasonable expectation to prohibit their leaving the company with pilfered recipes or trade secrets or from siphoning off top-tier clients for their new venture.

But not all non-compete clauses will stand up under legal scrutiny, as one sandwich-maker learned a few years ago.

A total of seven women who once worked for Amazon have separately accused the online retail giant of pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination.

The women, who are from several different states, each alleged that Amazon forced them out of their warehouse jobs because they got pregnant. Amazon denies the allegations and has suggested that these women were fired for good cause, including the violation of workplace rules.