by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
Did you know that employers in Florida can legally fire you for any reason they want as long as you aren’t fired for something based on the federally-protected discrimination issues like race or gender?
“Most people believe that employers need to have a good reason to fire you but they don’t,” said Tess Arington, a staff attorney for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. “Because Florida is an ‘at will employment state,’ an employer could fire you because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Arington said she is surprised at the number of workers who don’t fully understand what their rights are as employees. That is why she holds a worker’s rights clinic once a month at JALA’s downtown office.
“The clinic serves a twofold purpose,” Arington said. “It educates workers about their rights in employment law and it helps to dispel mistaken beliefs about those rights.”
Arington said many of the people that come to her with discrimination issues actually have not been discriminated against. Though they might have been treated unfairly, she said that doesn’t necessarily mean their employer broke the law.
“Unfair treatment is not necessarily unlawful treatment,” she said. “We are trying to educate people about the differences between unlawful and unfair treatment.”
Arington was hired last August to handle all of JALA’s employment-related cases and she implemented the free worker’s rights clinic in November. Though most of her cases at JALA are related to wage claim disputes or unemployment compensation issues, she said the clinic covers many of the basics regarding employment law. Besides telling them about the facts, she also gives clinic attendees a substantive handout full of information and examples.
Arington also takes her clinic on the road. Besides the monthly clinic held downtown, Arington has been to the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless and said she can take it anywhere people want to learn about their employment rights.
“I will take it to various places in the community where the majority of low-income wage earners are so they can attend,” she said.
The clinic’s mobility is important because Arington said not everyone that could benefit from the information can travel to downtown Jacksonville. JALA covers 16 other counties besides Duval, which severely limits some people’s accessibility to the downtown office, she said.
So far, Arington believes the clinic has been successful as an educational tool for Jacksonville’s working poor but she would like to see it grow in other directions in the future. She said she would like to have a separate clinic dedicated to just unemployment compensation issues.
“Just getting it off the ground was something I considered a success,” she said. “We get a few more people each meeting and I am hoping this will continue to grow.”
For more information about the worker’s rights clinic, call Arington at 356-8371, ext. 320.