Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, comedian and actor Bill Cosby and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes used non-disclosure agreements to silence women accusing them of sexual misconduct. To curb this type of misconduct in the workplace, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress drafted the Speak Out Act.
The bill builds upon a law President Biden signed in March ending forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault and harassment cases.
“The ones that I think are in the spotlight here are where somebody has either settled a harassment complaint,” employment law attorney Emily Smith-Lee said. “And as a consequence of being given a settlement has agreed not to talk about it, or a more restrictive NDAs that just say you won’t talk about what happens in the company.”
If the bill were to become law, it would allow victims to speak up even if they signed a confidentiality agreement
“Arbitration is a private dispute resolution proceeding, not a public records thing like a court proceeding, and then there’s the NDA. The two [arbitration and NDAs] work together to keep these things out of the public eye,” Smith-Lee said.
This law would be a win for critics of NDAs but could push companies to think twice about dishing out severance packages.
“I suppose a critic could say that if you took that incentive away, we might have fewer people getting, you know, manageable and decent severance agreements as they leave companies,” Smith-Lee said.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), who co-sponsored the bill, told the Washington Post, “When companies that are going to have offenders are aware that they cannot hide illegal sexual harassment, that they cannot put it under the rug, they’re going to take more steps from the get-go to keep it from happening.”
