can a company hire me to satisfy a contract with 3rd party,then fire me.

To answer your first question directly, yes, they can hire you for whatever reason and fire you for almost any reason. If it violates their contract with another, that gets them in trouble with the other party (you said it is the State), but you don't have any claim there as an employee. If there are regulations which they are now violating, and if they have received a contract through fraud, you may be able to benefit yourself by turning them in. This would require some "whistleblower " statute involved in this area.

If you have a written job offer which defines additional benefits, or an employee handbook which discusses "probation", then you may have a claim against them, based on misrepresentation or contract. But you would need strong evidence that you in particular, at the time you were hired, were promised additional benefits or a short probation period. This sounds to me like a very hard thing to prove. A company does have a right to offer minimum benefits and to offer other benefits after a period of employment.

posted by Kevin McGann  |  Dec 9, 2010 09:53 AM [EST]