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Are Nondisparagement Agreements Silencing Employee Complaints? (cnbc.com) 188

Posted by EditorDavid from the seldom-is-heard-a-disparaging-word dept.
cdreimer writes, "According to a report in the New York Times, 'nondisparagement agreements are increasingly included in employment contracts and legal settlements' to hide abuses that would otherwise be made public." The Times reports: Employment lawyers say nondisparagement agreements have helped enable a culture of secrecy. In particular, the tech start-up world has been roiled by accounts of workplace sexual harassment, and nondisparagement clauses have played a significant role in keeping those accusations secret... Nondisparagement clauses are not limited to legal settlements. They are increasingly found in standard employment contracts in many industries, sometimes in a simple offer letter that helps to create a blanket of silence around a company. Their use has become particularly widespread in tech employment contracts, from venture investment firms and start-ups to the biggest companies in Silicon Valley, including Google... Employees increasingly "have to give up their constitutional right to speak freely about their experiences if they want to be part of the work force," said Nancy E. Smith, a partner at the law firm Smith Mullin.
Three different tech industry employees told the Times "they are not allowed to acknowledge that the agreements even exist." And Google "declined to comment" for the article.
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Are Nondisparagement Agreements Silencing Employee Complaints? More

Are Nondisparagement Agreements Silencing Employee Complaints?

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  • No (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22, 2017 @11:40PM (#54860671)

    Is all I am allowed to say.

  • I can't talk about it.

  • Double Down (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22, 2017 @11:47PM (#54860693)

    Ann Lai, a former employee, said in her lawsuit filed in San Mateo Superior Court in California that she had complained to her bosses about sexism, discrimination and inappropriate behavior in the workplace, and that Binary used the nondisparagement provision in her employment contract to threaten her and prevent her from talking about why she had quit her job.

    If these threats come in, it is time to double down.

    Call the police to report the sexual harassment AND file a lawsuit.
    Both of these (reporting a crime to the police and filing a lawsuit) are immune to any silly non-disparagement clause.

    An anonymous tip to local and national media reporters about the court docket where the case was filed?
    That's just the icing on the cake.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kraven9 ( 577101 )
      AC calling for people to bravely expose themselves on principle. Just another loudmouthed idiot on /.

      • AC calling for people to bravely expose themselves on principle. Just another loudmouthed idiot on /.

        You kinda just won the internet!

    • They can always go to the law regardless, this is for when they don't but want to get their pound of flesh in PR damage to the company.

      He said she said cases are hard to prove after all. Especially for the company, since if they decide to punish someone based on thin air they are liable, their due diligence has a higher burden of evidence than a civil jury trial ... a jury has no liability at all, they can perpetrate injustice with impunity. Going after the women for slander when they say the company does n

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It can be very hard to prove specific crimes to the required standard for the police to take an interest, but it's usually much easier to show that there was an atmosphere of sexual harassment. Emails, witness statements, text messages, evaluations etc.

      That's why these things usually go the civil suit route. Emails can be saved, proving someone touched you when no one else was around is nearly impossible.

    • A very public "Nondisparagement Agreement" database could be created. There are people who actually need jobs who have little choice in signing a silly agreement. Knowing which companies that mandate them before applying for the job would save everyone a lot of time and effort. Plus, I wouldn't buy from any company that would squash an employee voice any more than I would if they required a customer to sign the "NA." No wonder brand loyalty and employee/employer loyalty seem to not be a thing.

    • Re:Double Down (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Sunday July 23, 2017 @07:09AM (#54861625) Journal

      Call the police to report the sexual harassment AND file a lawsuit.

      Say someone did. These are only allegations made against the employer. Nothing is proof of fact.

      Then when it comes to the lawsuit, corporate will bring its high-priced lawyers who are paid to know everything about corporate law. Up against that Goliath, most everyone chooses to settle. And in that settlement agreement? A non-disclosure clause.

      So when the New York Times tries to write a story about what happened, all they can say was "According to public records, an allegation was made against the employer. A settlement was reached regarding the allegation. Neither side is commenting on the matter."

  • Discourage, rather than enforce (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @12:24AM (#54860789) Homepage

    These types of agreements are always about the threat rather than the act.

    That is, they exist not to actually stop people from reporting, but instead to discourage them. No reasonable judge would let you sue someone for reporting a crime.

    But most of the time it is not entirely clear their is enough evidence of a crime going on, not until after the trial has begun.

    So when your boss fires you after verbally demanding sex, you will think twice about suing, because you know that if you can't prove it, they might go after you. Honestly, chances are very low they would sue you for speaking out and even less that they would succeed.

    But the threat of the law suit is enough to stop you from trying, at least unless you have a smoking gun email. (and now adays it is almost always an email.).

    • Who said anything about a crime? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @01:01AM (#54860881) Journal

      No reasonable judge would let you sue someone for reporting a crime.

      What guarantee do you have that you'll get a reasonable judge? Besides, who said anything about a crime? It is entirely possible for companies to engage in highly unethical, but completely legal, activity e.g. hiring child labourers in third world sweat shops to make their products which now does not happen because it was brought to the publics attention. Zero hour contracts are another example.

      Large companies are beginning to have as much power over our lives as governments and this means that they need to start having the same limits on that power as a government.

      • So you blow the whistle, they sue you, it's now on the court docket and the public record that they sued you to try to shut you up because of their alleged unethical activities.

        Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. We've seen how it's played out before [wikipedia.org]

        The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. It is an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware something is being kept from them, their motivation to access and spread the information is increased.

        It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California, inadvertently drew further public attention to it. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters to suppress numbers, files, and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.

        I'm surprised this isn't the first reaction to anyone confronted with such a situation. Anti-disparagement clauses are there to avoid bad publicity. If you go public, the existence of such a clause just invites them to shoot themselves in the fo

        • So you blow the whistle, they sue you, it's now on the court docket and the public record that they sued you to try to shut you up because of their alleged unethical activities.

          Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

          I'm surprised this isn't the first reaction to anyone confronted with such a situation. Anti-disparagement clauses are there to avoid bad publicity. If you go public, the existence of such a clause just invites them to shoot themselves in the foot.

          It's like any form of blackmail. Once you go public with it, and whatever they had on you, it no longer works.

          While I agree with you, the problem is everyone also knows you sued and thus are likely to think twice about hiring you. It's often best simply for both sides to move on; and non-disparagement works both ways, it's pretty standard for US companies to boot say anything about a former employee except verify dates of employment. When I worked corporate jobs we'd get periodic reminders from HR that any inquiries about a former employee were to be directed to them. They didn't want to get sued because someone sa

          • If they think twice because you successfully blew the whistle on illegal activity, it's because they fear you'll expose their illegal activities as well. Consider it a great way to filter out the scum employers. It would be in their self-interest to hire whistle-blowers and use them to help clean up the company before they get hit with lawsuits.

            • If they think twice because you successfully blew the whistle on illegal activity, it's because they fear you'll expose their illegal activities as well. Consider it a great way to filter out the scum employers. It would be in their self-interest to hire whistle-blowers and use them to help clean up the company before they get hit with lawsuits.

              Unfortunately, most employers don't think that way. It's not necessarily that they are going anything illegal, they may simply wonder what will this person take exception to, even if it is legal, and cause us a great big hassle? It's simply easier to not hire them than take a risk.

              • And yet they have to hire risk management people to basically blow the whistle on the company before things deteriorate. If the person has shown previous judgment in the past, not hiring them is an illegal discriminatory tactic. THAT is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

                • And yet they have to hire risk management people to basically blow the whistle on the company before things deteriorate.

                  No one said what companies do make sense.

                  If the person has shown previous judgment in the past, not hiring them is an illegal discriminatory tactic. THAT is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

                  First, it would be hard to prove the reason your resume was ignored was because a web search turned up your lawsuit; even so whistleblowers are not a protected class for hiring.

            • > If they think twice because you successfully blew the whistle on illegal activity, it's because they fear you'll expose their illegal activities as well.

              Not necessarily. I'd question the history of an applicant, especially one involved in such a lawsuit. Whistleblowers are not necessarily productive employees, especially if what they whistleblew on is ill founded. Would you consider hiring Leah Rowe, former primary maintainer of Libreboot, after her allegations of gender discrimination against the Free

              • You ignored the premise of my post, even though you quoted it.

                If they think twice because you successfully blew the whistle on illegal activity

                You wrote

                especially if what they whistleblew on is ill founded.

                So Leah Row was a poorly chosen example, since you admit her complaints were ill-founded (in other words, were not successful).

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • > It's only going to sue if you've already made the facts public,

            "Public" isn't usually the problem. "Potential clients" is usually the problem. It's why a frank discussion between the developers and the client is often blocked: the developers do not necessarily know what sales has promised to the client, or whether the client and sales actually mean something else than the "term of art" means for a particular hardware or software tool.

    • I agree with almost all of what you said about the threat, and the risk to an employee who reports misbehavior to anyone outside their immediate org chart behing large. Please permit me to point out that misbehavior worth reporting may be illegal, but not criminal. Also reporting it to someone else to _prevent_ a criminal or illegal act helps eliminate the evidence that an illegal act was planned, and can make proving it enough for a judge to say "you cannot punish an employee for reporting your behavior".

      I

  • what happened to fuckedcompany.com? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    we had the happy fun slander corner.

  • I can hear it now... (Score:3)

    by Frosty Piss ( 770223 ) * on Sunday July 23, 2017 @12:43AM (#54860835)

    I'm going to predict a lot of people here saying "I would never work such a place" or "I would never sign such an agreement" ...

    Let me just say bull shit, when you need a job you will work such a place and sign such an agreement.

    But I wouldn't really care because like a lot of things, for all practical purposes, these types of agreements are unenforceable.

    • Re:I can hear it now... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mvdwege ( 243851 ) <mvdwege@mail.com> on Sunday July 23, 2017 @04:15AM (#54861237) Homepage Journal

      For all practical purposes, they are very enforceable.

      If a company with all its resources decides to sue a single individual, it's a foregone conclusion. Unless they manage to find a backer with deep pockets, they'll be ruined fighting the suit, no matter the fact that the judge might throw it out. By the time it would have come to a hearing they'd already be in deep shit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      I've signed many NDAs and non competes. I've violated every one of the non-competes, and none of the NDAs. They are all unenforceable anyway, so better to have the job than not. Where I am now, I'm doing very sensitive things and have no non-compete or NDA.

  • I don't believe you can actually do that. I mean - you can certainly write your name on the paper, and you can voluntarily choose to act as if you're required to follow that agreement... but, before a judge, even if you said "yup I willingly signed away my constitutional rights" - that judge would at best laugh, and at worst hit you with his gavel for wasting his time with something which is not legal.

    • Long ago the Surpeme Court has interpreted this as no legal prosecution. Sure you can scream HITLER IS GOD in your office and have security and HR throw your ass off in the street and fire you, but no prosecution will happen as that is your free speech and right to say it.

      So the question is whether you can be sued for violation of contract? YES. Don't worry you won't be prosecuted. Just like their are financial repurcussions for opening your mouth at work you can freely divulge trade secrets, violate agreem

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        The courts have also ruled that you can't sign away rights, unless otherwise explicitly defined in law. If that wasn't the law, then slavery would be legal. So, do you have the right to sign yourself into slavery?

        • The courts have also ruled that you can't sign away rights, unless otherwise explicitly defined in law. If that wasn't the law, then slavery would be legal. So, do you have the right to sign yourself into slavery?

          THe issue is a fine vs a liability is the same in our pocket books. But in legal terms it is not illegal to be sued for free speech as only have rights to avoid being arrested and jailed or fined from government prosecution. That's it.

          Otherwise how would companies create trade secrets and agreements. Yes it is protected speech but there is nothing illegal by paying another party damages.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            And copyright is a government limit on speech, not a corporate one. As I noted, "unless otherwise explicitly defined in law". You were just agreeing in a fucking stupid manner.

            • No I am not. I am not talking about copyright either.

              The US constitution gives rights to the federal government to enforce contracts. It's a contractual issue and you can't be prosecuted. Otherwise employers and parties would have no rights at all. But that doesn't mean you are not liable for damages for breaking said contract.

              • He apparently doesnt know that there is a difference between a civil tort and a criminal trial.

                You cannot sign away your right to free speech, but you can sign up for a penalty or two.

                Contract law is all about keeping people "whole" .. and yes thats a legal term. If you sign a contract and then break that contract, the judge is going to try to make the other party "whole" again. It doesnt matter one bit that the thing you promised to do entails exercising one of your rights.

                The judge cannot make you s

                • He apparently doesnt know that there is a difference between a civil tort and a criminal trial.

                  You cannot sign away your right to free speech, but you can sign up for a penalty or two.

                  Contract law is all about keeping people "whole" .. and yes thats a legal term. If you sign a contract and then break that contract, the judge is going to try to make the other party "whole" again. It doesnt matter one bit that the thing you promised to do entails exercising one of your rights.

                  The judge cannot make you shut up nor can the judge cannot make you say things that you don't want to say. However the judge can and will award the plaintiff a pile of money and can and will seize your assets if that becomes necessary. If you think that the 1st amendment is all you need to get out of a contract, then you are in for a rude awakening.

                  Exactly and well stated. Since the agreement was voluntarly you can also argue no rights were violated. The reason the TSA can search you is because you are not forced to go on a plane but it's voluntary.

                  However, I am no lawyer. I would imagine a lot of liberal states like California might have labor laws though where such an agreement could be illegal? Then a tort is not N/A. Workers do have rights like a non hostile work environment for example so even if the constitution guarantees free speech another la

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by AK Marc ( 707885 )
                    So if you sign yourself into slavery for $100, what will the courts do?

                    I have read the court decisions on the matter, and you are talking about what "should" happen, not what has already been ruled and is considered settled law.

        • "The courts have also ruled that you can't sign away rights, unless otherwise explicitly defined in law."

          And those specified legal exceptions, like assignment of intellectual property, are the cause of endless problems. If IP had to remain with the creator or work, life would be a lot simpler for both creators and entrepreneurs.

    • I don't believe you can actually do that. I mean - you can certainly write your name on the paper, and you can voluntarily choose to act as if you're required to follow that agreement... but, before a judge, even if you said "yup I willingly signed away my constitutional rights" - that judge would at best laugh, and at worst hit you with his gavel for wasting his time with something which is not legal.

      In certain cases you can drastically modify your constitutional rights. If you obtain a security clearance, you commit a crime or at least a violation if you divulge any thing you shouldn't.

      People have gone to prison for that.

      But a nondispargement clause is almost certainly unenforceable in principle.

      I suspect that this sort of asshattery has come about because of some of the high profile cases in recent years, especially when the results vindicated the companies in question.

      It's asshat versus a

  • Why even ask the question? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Sunday July 23, 2017 @02:23AM (#54861041)

    Are Nondisparagement Agreements Silencing Employee Complaints?

    If they're working as intended, yes. Of course they are. That's their purpose.

  • Right ot not right? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:43AM (#54861183)

    Employees increasingly "have to give up their constitutional right to speak freely about their experiences if they want to be part of the work force,"

    It would seem that the U.S. has a pretty poor constitution if it can be superceded by contract law.

    Isn't the whole point of a country's constitution that it stands above all "lesser" principles and laws.

    • Re:Right ot not right? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @04:38AM (#54861299)
      It can't be superseded by contract law, but raising the constitutional issue is beyond the finances of a wage-earner, so the contract wins.

      • In other words, Americans wouldn't know what real freedom is even if they got cock slapped by it.

      • The constitution doesn't apply.

        The first amendment only prevents the *government* from infringing your right to free speech.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          When the government enforces a contract against you, it's the government who infringes your freedom of speech. A contract is meaningless without the force of the government enforcing it. So separating a contract from the government seems absurd.

    • Re:Right ot not right? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @06:42AM (#54861557)

      The role of the Constitution's free speech rights is to limit the ability of the government to infringe on speech. It doesn't have any influence on speech not involving the government. So private parties are free to negotiate contracts limiting what they will say and to whom, and thus you have NDAs and non-disparagement clauses and even civil settlements where the parties agree not to disclose the settlement terms.

      I think there's a more general civil rights argument to be made that there should be limits on corporations ability to limit free speech in some circumstances.

      Employer-employee relationships are inherently unbalanced and somewhat coercive, so I would bar non-disparagement agreements. You're not required by force of law to sign them, but for most people not signing them has substantial economic and career penalties which reduces most people's freedom to act.

      I would also require that large public spaces that are privately owned (like malls) should be required to accommodate public protest. We're rapidly losing truly public spaces ("the town square") and replacing them with privately owned versions of them. More nefariously, these large developments are often underwritten by local government in some way (bonds, TIF, paying for infrastructure upgrades like roads and sewers).

      • Re:Right ot not right? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @10:29AM (#54862115)
        The problem isn't that corporations are demanding unreasonable things. The problem is that people just don't give a damn. Ideally people would tell an employer demanding a non-disparagement agreement to go take a hike. You assume the ideal must be true, so you assume the only way people would sign their rights away is if they're coerced. But employers don't have to coerce employees to sign non-disparagement agreements. People think of the situations where the agreement would kick in, and they're so rare that they think nothing of signing it. The exact same thing is happening in the privacy front. People are willingly trading their personal info for free web space and email service.

        Thomas Jefferson said " the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." People concentrate on the "blood" part and assume it to mean that we must be willing to fight and die against tyrants who would take away our freedoms. I'm starting to think the "time to time" part is more important. If people don't occasionally experience living under tyranny, they grow complacent, start taking their freedoms for granted, and think nothing about signing them away. Only if you've had to fight and die for those freedoms do you truly appreciate their value.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          The problem isn't just that corporations are demanding unreasonable things. The problem is that people just don't have any power to push back

          FTFY. If you hate that agreement, but signing it means you and your kids wont be homeless next month, you'll sign the damned agreement.

      • Exactly, I keep hearing the argument that "the constitution only prevents the government from infringing on free speech", which is what it says, but this is a question of what it ought to do, not what it does do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      It would seem that the U.S. has a pretty poor constitution if it can be superceded by contract law. Isn't the whole point of a country's constitution that it stands above all "lesser" principles and laws.

      The US constitution was written with the mindset that it should be a meta-law to limit the power of an oppressive government, so it only says things like "Congress shall make no law (...) abridging the freedom of speech" and doesn't really deal with people at all except in the context of government action like giving you a fair trial. Everything else is just law, it's illegal to murder you not unconstitutional. So if Congress wants to do something about this, they should pass a law. The flip side of this is

    • The constitution protects it's citizens from their government. Another way of looking at it is protects groups of people from infringing the rights of others via the government. It's far from perfect, but still works better than most other systems.

      A contract is entered into willingly from all parties (if not, it isn't a valid contract) You are agreeing to give up certain rights in exchange for something, usually money.
      If there is no exchange of value, then it's also not a valid contract

  • I thought sexual harassment was illegal, and I presume a non-disparagement clause can't prevent an employee from disclosing illegal activity. If it can, then it seems the law needs re-writing.

    Just my thought, I don't know anything about the actual legality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iamacat ( 583406 )

      I thought sexual harassment was illegal

      Sort of [wikipedia.org]. Civil rights act mandates employers with 15 or more employees to not discriminate based on sex. Courts have ruled that certain types of sexual harassment, or say porn posted on workspace walls, results in discrimination in practice. But compensation is limited to lost wages plus damages for intentional violations. But, as far as I know, there are no prison sentences for sexual harassment which does not also constitute sexual assult.

  • This matches exactly my experience from 2009 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23, 2017 @06:19AM (#54861521)

    ...except it was a severance agreement. I'd been fired, and there was a reasonably decent (6 weeks of pay) severance agreement. However, it included both the clause that I would never ever make an disparaging statement about the company, nor that I would admit the existence of this severance agreement or disclose any terms in it. This was for a small (few hundred employee) tech company in San Francisco.

    I pushed back. I thought it was completely unreasonable to give up a part of my freedom of speech for this. At the time, I thought I might stay in the same general field (I haven't), and it would have been very constraining to never be able to criticize this company again. But, also, on principle, I did not like signing away my freedom of speech like that. What makes me sad is that almost everybody I talked to told me not to be ridiculous, to sign it. I was potentially giving up four weeks of severance pay (beyond the "two week notice" requiredby law), at a time when I'd just been fired and had no other job lined up. I was told by friends that it was irresponsible not to think about my wife and my own economic need for a stupid stand on principle. This makes me so sad, because at least nominally it was exactly these kinds of principles -- freedom of expression -- on which this country was supposedly founded. But, now, people find it childish and unrealistic to stand on principle.

    I didn't have any serious complaints about the company at the time. Over the previous ~year it had undergone some reorganization that I thought was destructive, and I thought the circumstances leading up to my firing were particularly stupid, but I didn't have any sexual harassment complaints or anything like that. But, still, just because you don't have a big issue right now does not mean you should sign away a fraction of your freedom of speech for all time.

    The other sad thing was that at one point, somebody from HR told me on the phone, "we're not trying to limit your freedom of expression, we just want you to manage your communication". People in the corporate world really believe things like this, which is rather alarming.

    In the end, I managed to convince them to change it to "no disparaging statements for a year, no untrue disparaging statements ever". I decided I could live with that. Technically, I'm breaking the agreement right now by talking about it, which is why I post anonymously and don't name the company. I think that's stupid too, but I also know more than to risk putting myself up against the lawyers of even a small company.

    • Or you go hardball with them and get a copy of the agreement and then tell them that either they strip out the language or you will go to the press and tell the 10 o'clock news that they are anti freedom of speech and trying to violate laid off employees first amendment rights and holding their severance packages hostage. Most companies fear bad press to begin with (which is why the clause was in there to begin with). My response has and always will be any contract beyond a standard NDA ends the day they

  • Happened to me (Score:3)

    by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @07:37AM (#54861673)

    I had to sign one of these things when I left a company. They withheld wages until I signed. Totally illegal of course, but I needed the money.

  • Pathetic (Score:3)

    by LeftCoastThinker ( 4697521 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @11:21AM (#54862309)

    Apparently we need a US Supreme Court ruling (again?) that you cannot sign away your constitutional rights, and all of these contracts are abusive. It would also be nice to have a federal law that says that any contract found to be abusive of constitutional laws in court is not only void, but also automatically awards the victim $100k per abusive clause, with no limit on damages. As soon as the cost outweighs the benefit, businesses will stop this bullshit. It's the same thing as non-competes.

  • ... because my employer is nuts. And people suffering from mental afflictions don't have the capacity to enter into contracts.

    Seriously, corporations (as people) are psychopathic by nature because they have no innate morality or empathy. Even if individuals within a corporation are not, they are duty bound to act in the best interests of the organization and it's shareholders.

  • The agreements aren't the problem (Score:3)

    by russotto ( 537200 ) on Sunday July 23, 2017 @01:43PM (#54862921) Journal
    If you've got dirt on a company and you start disparaging them, the only thing them suing you to silence you is going to do is to get all the dirt out and convince everyone involved it's true. The problem is that if you disparage a former employer, you risk making yourself unemployable. If you make a big enough splash to affect them, chances are everyone in the industry will hear about it, and you'll be known as trouble. If you don't make a big enough splash to affect them, why bother?
    • So... what you're saying is that, at least part of the problem, is the attitude surrounding handling people who decide to out doings in their former employees, and partly how people go about handling having that sort of information?

  • Ok, so non disparagement.

    When you combine this with a previous article regarding noncompetes it's a disturbing trend.

  • 232.5. No employer may do any of the following:
    (a) Require, as a condition of employment, that an employee refrain from disclosing information about the employerâ(TM)s working conditions.
    (b) Require an employee to sign a waiver or other document that purports to deny the employee the right to disclose information about the employerâ(TM)s working conditions.
    (c) Discharge, formally discipline, or otherwise discriminate against an employee who discloses information about the employerâ(TM)s worki

  • Give the contract back, with the non-disparagement clause stroked out.

    Tell them you won't sign away your rights.

    Find a better job.

    If they still want you, and delete the clause, great! If not... see ya, suckas. I don't want to work for you anyway.
    • I wonder about replacing the clause: I promise not to disparage the company as long as the company promises to follow all laws.

      Then if they cross that out and don't accept it, can we simply put them out of business? A business is supposed to follow all laws.

      Or how about I'll keep the promises as long as I don't personally witness any lawbreaking. If that happens, then I am free from this particular contract. -Force- them to pass that thru the lawyers and see what happens.

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