Collaborative Research on Layoffs and Wrongful Termination Litigation

无论是对个人还是对公司而言，很少有事件像裁员那样令人痛苦。这个项目探索工人如何看待他们失业的原因，以及他们如何决定他们是否遭受了错误的或歧视性的待遇。该项目通过研究与过去雇主有关的索赔决定，扩大了对起诉决定的研究。这项研究将测试诉讼行为的一些理论，特别是前雇主对公平或不公平待遇的感受如何影响做出错误解雇索赔的决定。通过帮助我们了解索赔决定所涉及的心理和社会过程，这项研究将有助于我们理解公平待遇的日常概念如何影响案件进入法律系统。这项合作研究将包括对1075名最近从州失业办公室招聘的被解雇或下岗工人的采访。访谈将探讨各种被认为有助于决定起诉的因素，包括解雇前的待遇、失业的经济负担、对索赔选择的认识以及歧视感觉。对一些工人的后续采访将被用来确定实际上是谁发起了错误的解雇索赔。

Few events are as traumatic, in both personal and corporate terms, as layoffs. This project explores how workers view the causes of their job loss and how they decide whether they have suffered wrongful or discriminatory treatment. The project expands the study of decisions about suing by looking at claiming decisions with respect to past employers. The study will test a number of theories of litigation behavior, focusing particularly on how feelings of fair or unfair treatment by the former employer affects the decision to make a wrongful termination claim. By helping us to understand the psychological and social processes involved in claiming decisions, the study will contribute to our understanding of how everyday notions of fair treatment affect the movement of cases into the legal system. This collaborative study will include interviews of 1075 recently fired or laid-off workers recruited at state unemployment offices. The interviews will explore a variety of factors thought to contribute to the decision to sue, including pre-termination treatment, financial burdens of unemployment, awareness of claiming options, and feelings of discrimination. Follow-up interviews with some of the workers will be used to determine who actually initiated wrongful termination claims.