Introduction

Ten years ago a symposium on the subject of employment at will would have been unthinkable. There would have been few commentators willing to write on the subject, and few others interested in reading about it. The misbegotten legal doctrine was mechanically, and at times brutally, applied by the courts but was seldom examined or questioned. It was one of our inherited legal curses which we mindlessly accepted. The symposium speaks to the task ahead - to use every legal device available to sweep away the remnants of the employment-at-will doctrine and bring a measure of freedom, respect, and dignity to every American worker.