Most employees in the United States are employees at will--they can be fired for any or no reason. In one exception to this rule, however, federal or state statutes protect employee expression, most significantly in the area of private employee testimony. The protective schemes developed by Congress and the state legislatures are of two types: those designed to protect employees testifying before courts, labor commissions, or legislatures and those designed to protect employees testifying about specific statutes concerning air pollution, wages and hours, coal mine health and safety, and so forth. Another major category of statutes protecting employee communication are those that protect political activities such as expressing political opinion, supporting a particular party or candidates, and running for and serving in political office. Thus far, legislative protection seems to be more common either when the communication is far removed from the job or when a narrow, tightly developed statute exists to avert some grave danger. Even in the present fragmented statutory approach, legislation protecting employee communication has been passed during the past decade at a rate far greater than at any other time in history. Legislatures face the basic question of whether or not organizations can operate efficiently if their employees are free to communicate. (HOD)