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Microsoft Backs Bill To Give Harassment Cases Their Day in Court, Waives Its Own Arbitration Clauses (geekwire.com)
Microsoft is throwing its weight behind a Senate bill that aims to ensure victims of workplace sexual harassment can make their case in court. In doing so, Microsoft has become the first Fortune 100 company to back the bipartisan effort to ensure that companies aren't able to keep such allegations from becoming public. From a report: The tech giant says it's also waiving its own arbitration requirements for harassment claims in the "small segment" of Microsoft employment contracts that contain them. Microsoft says it has never enforced an arbitration requirement in a sexual harassment case. However, the requirement does exist in employment contracts with some Microsoft corporate vice presidents, legal and corporate affairs employees, and company founders who joined Microsoft through acquisitions.
I am having great difficulty seeing any possible way that this action by Microsoft can harm Linux or other open source projects? So why is Microsoft doing this?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
If so I'll believe Microsoft is serious.
Why are companies allowed to prevent their employees from going to the court? Corporate law trumps state law?
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I'm looking at you, government. Stop with the taxpayer funded slush funds to quiet your accusers. Let's treat every the same, regardless of their employer. What a concept!!!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
https://i.imgur.com/g2qcX4p.jp...
so i got her back, i got her back real good
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Why are companies allowed to prevent their employees from going to the court? Corporate law trumps state law?
Contract law is what we are talking about and companies are forcing employees to sign forced arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. State law is typically mute on the subject so because it isn't prohibited it is permitted. Naturally forced arbitration tends to heavily favor the companies which is a huge problem. Once enough companies insist on such clauses employees don't really have the option to seek employment elsewhere under less oppressive terms.
Personally I think forced arbitration as a condition of employment is a reprehensible practice that should as a general proposition be illegal.
Welcome to the United States of America. You must be new here! Yes, corporations always trump individuals in the United States, whether it's in regards to legal, financial, or even health issues.
I don't respond to AC's.
And protection from frivolous/false claims.
How about prohibiting making the identity of the actual person you are accusing known in public, until a court adjudicates and confirms that accusation.
It's all too easy to throw around harmful false accusations. That's probably what the arbitration agreements are intended to do --- keep harmful false accusations from being public until arbitrated and reviewed. Forced arbitration IS a legal and reasonable way of settling claims without unnecessary harm to the innocent when the accusations turn out to be clearly false.
Now why the fuck would I want to touch such a superficial bitch with anything but a ten foot pole?
And I'm not talking about my dick.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why are companies allowed to prevent their employees from going to the court? Corporate law trumps state law?
Contract law is what we are talking about and companies are forcing employees to sign forced arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. State law is typically mute on the subject so because it isn't prohibited it is permitted.
No. The problem is that Federal Law has been written by Congress to allow companies to keep claims out of court, because court is expensive and public--and to avoid subjecting claims to the whims of a jury. So almost all well-drafted consumer contracts can't be meaningfully contested in court because they usually contain arbitration clauses. Sometimes you can get out of the arbitration clauses, but usually you can't because the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state law.
Real lawyers write in C++
Relationships between staff have always been problematic, and relationships between managers and subordinates even more so. Many, if not most firms now, have pretty strong HR policies against any relationships involving any kind of power imbalance; the classic "executive sleeping with his secretary" scenario, because that power imbalance will always raise questions as to whether there is true consent. It's one thing to have to cubicle workers of equal standing having a relationship. While that can create some degree of havoc, particularly if they breakup badly, it's the supervisor/subordinate relationships where HR and legal's nightmares can come true; where someone in a subordinate position can be claimed to have had a consensual relationship with someone further up the chain, and yet the company still ends up in hot water when the subordinate, often because of a messy breakup or because their supervisor love interest didn't make good on certain professional promises (ie. I'm going to make sure you're promoted ASAP, and it doesn't happen), and then suddenly the whole question of whether there was a coercive element to the relationship rears its ugly head, and suddenly what seemed consensual can morph into an exploitative relationship and yes, possibly even sexual assault.
So firms usually have a limited number of options. One is to outright ban such relationships, and if a manager gets caught having a sexual relationship with a secretary, one or both are reprimanded or fired. The other is to require a change to the reporting relationship so the manager is no longer in a position to do special favors for the subordinate, or if the relationship goes sour, to do the subordinate some sort of professional harm. This solution may be available to larger firms where one of the employees can be shunted into a different department, but may not be feasible in smaller companies. The third solution is the (in)famous "love contract", whereby HR and/or legal sits down with the the manager and subordinate separately, tries to determine whether the relationship is truly consensual, makes both parties sign a contract declaring that they are in the relationship freely, and then makes a number of performance requirements. I've heard that these love contracts, while they will get 100% buy-in from the two at the time, don't always guarantee things go smoothly in the longer run, but they may at least be strong enough to prevent the company being dragged into a sexual assault or wrongful dismissal case, and may even give the company sufficient leverage to sack one or both people in the relationship should it prove too disruptive to business operations.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's certainly a solution for you, as you sound like the emotionally stunted troglodyte who has no idea how to behave around women.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> No. Voluntary relationships tend to be contractual -- governed by a contract.
It's possible that most employment contracts are considered so one-sided that it's a contract of adhesion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Says the person who works around women every day and doesn't imagine that they're all out to cut off my genitals. You know, I'm an actual functional adult, not some 4chan man child
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If it applied to politicians and bureaucrats, I could REALLY support the bill. If they're going to be exempt, then why bother?
Psychological violence is just as real as physical violence, genius.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it