“Retaliation” can take include a number of things, but “retaliatory discharge” is a specific type of wrongful termination. In short, you cannot be asked to do something illegal for your employer, nor be fired if you refuse to do it. For example, say your employer is perpetrating fraud against the government by misusing funds allocated for security systems. If he or she asks you to “fudge” the paperwork and you refuse, you cannot be fired for refusing. Generally speaking, retaliatory discharge claims of this kind are linked to public policy violations, but that is not always the case.