Just Cause for Discharge and Its Relation to Unemployment Insurance

The purpose of this study is, first, to examine cases of discharge for cause (that is, disciplinary discharges). The motive is to determine the justice or injustice of this exercise of managerial prerogative under particular circumstances. This should have general industrial applicability* The investigation has been given a special motive by the passage of forty-four state unemployment compensation laws. Since these acts attach a penalty to an employee who is otherwise eligible for benefits, but has allegedly been discharged for misconduct, it will become the duty of the state administrative agencies to determine in each contested case whether or not the claimant has been justly so accused. Because it was necessary to limit the scope of the investigation so that each aspect might properly be studied, the ultimate objective of providing a practical manual of principles with which to judge the justice of any discharge has been constantly kept in mind.The principles with which this study concludes are generalities also, but with a direct and practical relation to their field, of application. They have been derived from a study of selected individual cases which should simplify understanding, A further simplification, it is believed, is impractical.