South Carolina is an employment-at-will state. That means that any employer can take an
adverse action, including termination, against an employee at any time for any
reason that is not against the law or discriminatory.

An adverse employment decision that is against the law would
be, for example, terminating an employee in retaliation because the employee
filed an OSHA complaint.

A discriminatory reason would be one based on race, color,
religion, sex, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy or
age. Here is an Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission publication explaining illegal discrimination: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html.

There are exceptions to employment-at will. Those are:

1.
An employment contract. In South Carolina, an employment contract
does not necessarily have to be in writing.
It may be implied by the actions of the employer, or what the employer
says.

2.
An employment manual that states employment is
not at will, or that certain procedures must be followed to terminate an
employee.

3.
A union agreement.

4.
In South Carolina, there is a good-faith
exception as well, which means that in the termination must not be made in bad
faith or maliciously. A bad faith or
malicious reason for termination would be, for example, making up allegations
that an employee stole money in order to terminate the employee.

5.
There may be additional exceptions that apply to
public employees, such as police officers and employees of government agencies.

A "hostile work environment" is related to the issue of
discrimination and retaliation. A
"hostile work environment" arises when an employee is harassed in the workplace
because they are in a protected class, or in retaliation for filing a
complaint. A prime example of a hostile
work environment is in the movie North
Country, where a woman working in a mine was subjected to sexual taunts and
assaults because she was a woman. (A
"hostile work environment" does not happen just because a workplace is awful to
work in, or an employer is unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious - the bad
treatment has to happen because of discrimination or retaliation.)

If the adverse employment action was discriminatory, here is
a link to the EEOC website for more information: http://www.eeoc.gov/
explaining discrimination;; and the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission is
here: http://www.state.sc.us/schac/ EEOC complaints must be filed within 180 days
of the discrimination.

If the adverse employment action might have been
retaliatory, contact the agency where the Complaint was filed and ask for
assistance.

If the adverse employment action was wrongful but not
discriminatory, a government agency cannot help, but an attorney may be able to
help. http://www.findlaw.com/
is a good resource. If the adverse
employment action violated a Union agreement, you need to work with your Union
representative first.