Facebook Follows Google To End Mandatory Arbitration For Sexual-Harassment Claims (cnbc.com) 72
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.
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I think I might be beginning to like country music.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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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.
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Employer "risks" the same with a woman and a man, as normally the man takes care of the child from 7-8 months and onwards.
My point is that if you really wanted to make laws, you have to go all the way.
Re: Good btw (Score:1)
How are these mandatory arbitration clauses even legal, it basically denies employees the right to law and justice. This issue should be addressed at the federal level.
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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.
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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 bu
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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.
Who said anything about suing? Reporting a crime at your nearest police station is free. If your employer doesn't want to do anything then take your complaint, charges and evidence to the place your're supposed to.
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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.
Re: Good btw (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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No witnesses, no evidence? Why should the *company* then do something about it?
Presumably they'd at least 'want' to speak to those involved and log the report, even if the claim is unverifiable.
In this way they'd become aware that repeat incidents, should they occur, were at least repeats, as opposed to an (alleged) isolated case.
Hard to spot patterns of (mis)behaviour by your employees if there's no institutional memory...
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No witnesses, no evidence? Why should the *company* then do something about it?
Because they are working with a very different standard of evidence.
For the police it is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
For the arbitration, it is preponderance of the evidence.
For company administrative action, it is even less than that. If there were no witnesses because his office door was closed, then why was the door closed? One-on-one meetings should be held with the door open. So even if there is no evidence of groping, policy was violated, and behavior was suspicious. That's not enough to go
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No witnesses, no evidence? Why should the *company* then do something about it?
Because they are working with a very different standard of evidence.
For the police it is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
No. For a crime it is "beyond reasonable doubt".
For the arbitration, it is preponderance of the evidence.
No. For a civil case it is "preponderance of evidence". For arbitration it is whatever the specific employer wants it to be, ranging from "beyond reasonable doubt" to "accusation is enough".
For arbitration, the company sets the standard of evidence required, which can range from "You need incontrovertible proof" to "none". The company literally needs no evidence to fire your ass. Removing arbitration sets the bar to "preponderance of evidence" but requires
.. and so it continues (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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You're a liar.
If you're an Uber driver in California for instance, you would have won the recent class lawsuit against Uber (if not for the arbitration clause).
As it stands, only the drivers that had the presence of mind to opt-out of arbitration within a specific time limit won that case, but that's only a tiny fraction of them.
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> There's a BIG difference between assault and rape.
No, rape is one form of sexual assault. Typically terms like 'sexual assault' and 'criminal sexual conduct' are used in the law because they cover more degrees than just forced penetration without consent.
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You're a liar.
If you're an Uber driver in California for instance, you would have won the recent class lawsuit against Uber (if not for the arbitration clause).
As it stands, only the drivers that had the presence of mind to opt-out of arbitration within a specific time limit won that case, but that's only a tiny fraction of them.
To be ware, it's plausible the grandparent is bizzaro Hanlon's Razor... uninformed, as opposed to malice-driven.
Facebook office dating policy, yuck! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Why should they disclose anything other than !INTERESTED_KXTHBAI?
Re: Facebook office dating policy, yuck! (Score:1)
Actually many countries and corporations have policies like this because a senior employee can have de-facto control over subordinate employees which can cause all sorts of problems like basically unreported rape and things.
This is a huge problem in many countries where a lot of new interns (younger girls) basically find out soon that either they must sleep with a superior or quit. And in these same countries quitting or getting fired is basically equivalent to being unemployable.
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This is a huge problem in many countries where a lot of new interns (younger girls) basically find out soon that either they must sleep with a superior or quit. And in these same countries quitting or getting fired is basically equivalent to being unemployable.
You had me upto that. It has nothing to do with younger girls...
Actually, it does, your whataboutism notwithstanding.
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That is complete and utter horseshit and you and I both know it.
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Actually many countries and corporations have policies like this because a senior employee can have de-facto control over subordinate employees which can cause all sorts of problems like basically unreported rape and things.
This is a huge problem in many countries where a lot of new interns (younger girls) basically find out soon that either they must sleep with a superior or quit. And in these same countries quitting or getting fired is basically equivalent to being unemployable.
Spot on.
I would add that the social trend towards equality of the sexes has improved society to the point where
a lot of new interns
doesn't mean a club of exclusively younger or even just girls.
The perks of power have traditionally, in Weinsteinian fashion, afforded superiors sexual power over their subordinates.
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Wrong. Puritanism can take liberal as well as conservative forms. Puritanism is a philosophy that may or may not be tied to a specific religion.
Both liberals and conservatives can be meddlesome, anti-sexuality arseholes.
Re: Facebook office dating policy, yuck! (Score:2, Interesting)
Dude... he's using the term "puritanism" metaphorically. I don't think he believes the social just-us nazis are actually members of the (extinct?) Puritan religion.
It's a valid comparison. Social just-us nazis - especially feminazis - do act an awful lot like the raging hypocrite Fundamentalist "Christians" who plagued America back in the day.
Re: Facebook office dating policy, yuck! (Score:2)
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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.
There's nothing "American" or "outside of work" about any of this. Conflict of interest office relationships affect the workplace directly. This is also standard in pretty much every large company regardless of where they are based.
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.
Nice dooms day scenario. Unfortunately for you these kinds of situations and scenarios are incredibly rare and in many cases don't work out well for the Boss.
US employers are far too intrusive as to employees' personal lives.
The only thing intrusive here was the forced arbitration. In the rest of what we have been discussing the past few weeks,
If there was a crime committed (Score:1)
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Oh it's the "herp derp crime" meme that's been coming up like clockwork in every single one of these posts.
You seem to have forgotten that your country has two forms of courts, criminal and civil. This post pertains only to the civil form.
You also seem to have an immense and misplaced amount of faith in the police. You may recall in fact that multiple people had gone to the police over Bill Crosby for example before the whole thing broke, and none of them had any luck for decades.
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Thank you so much, corporate overlord! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Call to End Binding Arbatration (Score:2)