California might well be different; I don't know, and don't live there. Where I live, any employee can be fired for any reason, or no reason (protected class stuff excepted of course).

There's precident for "we're transferring you to the Chicago office, Bob" and Bob would just pack up the family from wherever they were living and move. This was common in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s at least for white collar jobs.