Not all states are employment at-will. Also, even if you fire somebody for "any" reason ,if you don't document the process carefully, you expose yourself to legal action. There are a whole bunch of concerted protected activities that your employer can't fire you for.
In practical terms, you can fire someone for any reason, just so long as you list an acceptable reason on the paperwork. The power of an employer to fire you at any time is definitely not equal to the average employee having the power to leave at any time, and that's part of why 'employment at will' is a crock.
Actually, if someone is an "at-will" employee in the U.S. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment), you don't need any reason at all to fire him. Certainly gross insubordination (such as refusing to do a job when asked) is something that people are fired for all the time. Paper trails are useful when the employee is a member of a protected class and could allege in a law suit that they were fired because they were a minority, pregnant, over 40, etc. But that doesn't seem to apply to the original poster's situation.
Not when it’s at-will employment. You don’t need a reason to fire anyone in most states in US. Only exceptions are protected things like because of gender or race etc - but that is even blurry to prove it.
Unions are the only protection but companies do everything to burst unions e.g Starbucks and Amazon.
Many US states are "At Will" employment. You can be fired for almost any reason, at any time. At the same time, you can quit at any time. Giving notice is a professional courtesy, but not strictly required.
Many states in the US are at will employment. Meaning you can be fired at any time for basically any reason. Protected classes (race, gender, etc) and acts are the exemption to that. But they can use any excuse they want, fire you, and hire someone else to the same position right away.
Lots of places have 'at will' employment conditions which mean you can in fact be fired for any reason whatsoever. Oddly enough this seems to be more popular in conservative jurisdictions.
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