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SC Employment Law Help?
Can anyone provide information about whether it is legal or not for an employer to force you to sign an employment contract in the state of South Carolina?
I work for a private school and the rumor is that we will soon be forced to sign a contract that threatens us with being sued if we leave to work for another institution of education. A former employee of the school I work at will soon be opening her own private preschool and basically our general manager does not want anyone to leave to go and work for her.
If we refuse to sign this contract, is it illegal to fire us for that? To my understanding, South Carolina is an "at-will" work state and no reason has to be provided for termination. But should we chose to sign the contract, is this in violation of any law.
Any clarification or assistance would be appreciated. Thanks!
Even though your state is an "employment at will" state, the type of contract that you are being asked to sign is illegal if you are certain that it will contain the verbiage that you will be sued if you leave their employment to pursue employment with another educational institution.
Most employers do make employees sign a confidentiality statement/contract in the case that the employee resigns to pursue employment with a similar employer. In this case, the employer could sue the former employee, if he/she broke the confidentiality satement that was signed. I am assuming that since it is a private educational institution you do not have a union. If you do have a union, please add this additional information under your question or email me if you prefer.
If you are sure that the verbiage as I have stated above is going to be in the binding contract and employees refuse to sign the contract, the employer can terminate their employment. However, in this instance, the individuals would be found eligible to collect Unemployment and upon review the DOL would get involved with respect to the contract that was signed by the employees who chose to.
Since you do not have the contract in hand and are not certain of what legal verbiage it entails is is hard for me to answer the question of legality. My suggestion to you would be to get a copy of the contract when it is provided to you to sign, let the individual know that since it is a legal contract, you need some time to review the contract before signing it and then follow up with me or the DOL with regards to the legality of the contract. If the individual refuses to allow you the time to review the contract (such as 1 - 2 business days) then I my recommendation is not to sign the contract, this is a good indication that it is an illegal instrument.
Please feel free to email me with any further question with respect to this matter.
Best wishes.
May 14th, 2010 at 11:08 am
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