Tell me more about this “contract” you speak of. We must work in very different industries if you get anything remotely like what you describe.
- This is not a contract; any contract with us must be signed by the CEO. (Paper is not signed by the CEO.)
- You are an "at will" employee. The employment relationship may be ended at any time, by any party, for any reason, or no reason at all. There are no notice requirements, and any and all obligations of one party to the other are severed at the moment of separation.
- We may change the terms and conditions of your employment at any time. If you don't like it, you are free to leave.
As employment "contracts" go, these were slightly less useful to me than a roll of toilet paper.
When I made my comment, I was trying to get a handle on just why Americans don't think of these as contracts, and the quoted bit is why I think. An employment contract, to an American, means, for whatever reason, probably because that's how Europeans do it, that the company can't just fire you.
The fact that should the agreement ever turn up in court, it's contract law that will be used to adjudicate it, just doesn't register. Probably because lawsuits are so far away from the American consciousness, something only big companies with huge budgets do with each other. Or ambulance chasers or other such grifters.
The only negotiable point is the rate of pay. The valuable consideration is money for labor. All other terms and conditions of employment are set by the employee manual, which is "do this, just like this, or we fire you".
As contracts go, they suck for the employee.
The culture shock I'm feeling at this discovery is worse than discovering the US doesn't have electric kettles, bans crossing the road, or still uses cheques in shops.
By default, in all but one US State, employees can be fired with no notice for no reason (or for any reason other than a handful of specific exceptions like "because of your race"). The legal departments of most companies feel that having a clearly specified contract would weaken this right, so as a matter of policy they do not have contracts with the majority of employees (this includes most tech employees). They have employees sign separate contracts for things like "keeping all the company's secrets", "granting ownership of copyrights and patents" or "promising not to work for any competitor for some length of time", and these contracts are not tied to their salaries.
You are welcome to decide that you don't like this system, but you will find it difficult to find employment.