US companies can't shut you up as part of severance package

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Watchdog reverses Trump era decision upholding ability to stop ex-staffers talking smack about you

A US federal agency has made an employee-friendly ruling that affects laid-off staffers: if your company has given you severance pay, it can't insist you keep its skeletons in the closet in exchange.

The ruling affects all US business employers, which are subject to the National Labor Relations Board's authority, althoughIt means that tech companies Stateside will already be combing through the wording of their boilerplate severance agreements, which can't insist on silence and preventing leaks of critical details about their corp in exchange for severance pay.

, where a unionized teaching hospital laid off some of its employees, and put confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions in the severance agreements. The former workers then took the issue to the NLRB. The decision explained that tagging gag rules onto offers given to furloughed employees"prohibited them from making statements that could disparage the employer and from disclosing the terms of the agreement itself.

The Board observed that the employer's offer is itself an attempt to deter employees from exercising their statutory rights, at a time when employees may feel they must give up their rights in order to get the benefits provided in the agreement.

 

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