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Facebook Follows Google To End Mandatory Arbitration For Sexual-Harassment Claims (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Facebook on Friday became the latest tech company to end a policy of requiring employees to settle claims of sexual harassment through private arbitration, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. It will now allow employees to take these types of claims to court. Tech companies have long used arbitration as a method for handling instances of sexual harassment to prevent employees from suing them in court, but that's starting to change. Facebook's move comes shortly after a similar move this week by Google, which came after thousands of its employees walked out in protest last week over its handling of sexual harassment complaints. Additionally, Facebook changed its policy on office dating and will now require employees who are director level or higher to disclose if they are dating a colleague, the report said. Previously, the company only required disclosure if an employee was dating someone they supervised, according to the report.
This is nothing but Virtue Signaling. Nothing. You ALWAYS had the right to pursue legal remedies outside your employer. If people actually READ the contracts they signed for Employment they'd realize it's a farse because much of it is invalid but they put the language there expecting most people to not question it.
Typical American Puritanism -- they want to control what employees do with each other, on their own damn time, outside of work. Hope this new intrusive policy leads to massive lawsuits for privacy violation.
Picture this -- two employees in different departments start dating. Boss has a crush on one of them, and they disclose whom they're dating. Let the shitshow begin.
US employers are far too intrusive as to employees' personal lives.
They aren't, for the most part. It's just that people do not pursue the other options, possibly because they don't know any better.
Yes, people always have a right to sue. But that isn't always the best option for the harassee. Going to court can be very expensive, and it is rare to find a lawyer willing to work on contingency. Corporations know how to grind you down and bleed you dry, with motion after motion, discovery, obfuscation, and delay. Arbitration is far faster and cheaper.
A big problem is that the arbitrator wants repeat business from the corporation, and know they will likely never see the petitioner again. This is a built-in bias.
It will now allow employees to take these types of claims to court
Oh my goshm, thank you so much, corporate overlord!
Seriously, something along the way went very, very wrong here. We allowed the company we work for, take away basic civil rights.
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Predictably, this will make them less likely to hire people who are likely to become the target of sexual harassment. Any time you raise the cost of hiring people with a discernible shared characteristic (and a bigger risk of suing is a big potential cost to average out), people naturally hire less of people who share those characteristics.
Same reason maternity leave laws, and similar laws ended up reducing job prospects for the people they were supposedly helping.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Reporting a crime at your nearest police station is free.
The police are very unlikely to get involved in a typical office harassment situation. An intern was groped or propositioned by her boss with no witnesses, and no evidence? The police can do nothing with that.
No witnesses, no evidence? Why should the *company* then do something about it?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.