Relationship between employer and employee much more nuanced than law assumes, says employment law expert
Workers pour sweat, blood and even dollars into the
firms that employ them, especially in a labor market characterized by
employment and retirement insecurity, says Marion Crain, JD, expert on
labor and employment law and professor of law at Washington University
in St. Louis. “Work can shape one’s life in ways that run to the core
of identity,” she says. “Work law, however, ignores these
realities of interdependence and mutual investment, committing itself to
a model of employment as an arm’s length, impersonal cash-for-labor
transaction.” Crain suggests looking at other legal models such as
marriage law to more accurately respond to the realities of the
employment relationship, particularly at termination.