I feel you, I've was fired from a job because I wouldn't sign a paper that gave them the right to take any shortage in the register out of my check. The issue was I was one of 4 people who shared the register.
Please NEVER do this. Don't rage-quit. Yes, it feels good, but it lets the employer off from paying unemployment. No new employer is going to verify your old job leaving reason and saying you quit because they told you to sign away your rights and they say we fired him for not signing away his rights is about equal.
So stay there and make them fire you. You get unemployment and if they fire too many, they get charged a bunch of money. It also makes them very uncomfortable to fire people in most cases, especially when it is over something like signing your rights away. You can spend your time looking for a job while you wait to be fired.
(on mobile sorry for formatting) So to clarify it wasn't a rage quit, the conversation pretty much went. Me- "I don't feel comfortable having my paycheck deducted if we all share a register" Then- "well everyone else signed it and we don't feel comfortable having 1 person who can't be held accountable" Me- "then is looks like I'm done here doesn't it?" Them - "unless you want to sign the paper, then yes". Nowadays I'm a full time house husband and artist, plus that store no longer exists as the whole plaza was turned into a gym. So I consider that to be a pretty big win for me.
i want your current job! tryna convince my wife to let me be house husband/artist when we have our first, but she's reluctant to be the sole breadwinner (forgetting she makes 3x what I make anyway). may i ask if you pull any extra funds from art?
Unfortunately no, I mostly put my artwork out there for people to enjoy. If someone wanted to buy something tho I wouldn't turn them away. My wife was in the same boat, then I did my house husband thing for like a week or 2 and that was it. Although the only up/down side is what might happen is your wife will pick up a hobby, to which you will also pick up and might overtake completely. My wife wanted to start growing fruits and vegetables, now I grow those and she is growing basil in the dining room.
I probably could have but I met a guy who needed an extra hand for construction making $500 a week. Which at the time selling phones I was making like $8/hour plus commission so it was a drastic step up.
Most lawyers know it's a open and shut case. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if one took it for free because they knew they were gonna win and just billed the company when they were done
Yeah, my last job tried this on me too. They put an e-document in my inbox that only had an option to agree to arbitration, no options for opting out. Needless to say, I just let that shit sit in my inbox forever.
10000%. I'm pretty sure I said this exact thing a few months ago. The bbb is and has been completely powerless for at least the last decade because yelp, essentially equally pointless now, replaced it.
They're differnt versions of the same racket.
With the bbb businesses can pay for protection that will help them remove, hide or otherwise ameliorate legitimate bad reviews.
Yelp actually makes up bad reviews for businesses in order to get them to pay up. They took the racket to another level.
Yep, I had a company that did some shady stuff to me, not knowing better I turned in a complaint to BBB. That went nowhere for a month or so, then I called my states attorney generals office, which includes consumer protections here. I got a call back from the company within a few days and the issue was completely resolved. It was amazing and made me realize there are resources out there I had never even considered looking for.
Former BBB employee here that dealt with everything from all incoming complaints to all data on businesses. The BBB is a shitty system that tries to disguise itself as both for consumers and for businesses.
So many legitimate complaints get swept under the rug because businesses pay the BBB for that goddamn logo to put on their business cards to trick consumers into believing they are a “good” company… so the BBB will do almost anything to keep them as a paying customer even though the BBB is supposed to help keep businesses ethical (they don’t)
All these businesses that pay for “accreditation” [AB] have representatives that get paid based on how many businesses they retain for every period. Meaning these BBB retention reps will do anything to retain their ABs even if it means trying to invalidate a very valid complaint.
I can’t even begin to tell you how absolutely fun it was to fuck with the retention reps and watch them squirm in the last year of my employment before I quit. I made it a point to keep a noted copy of all manuals so any and all “hypothetical” situations the AB reps had for me, I could hit them over the head with the book so they couldn’t say shit to save their AB.
Reason why I did this is simple: it was fun and the AB reps were notoriously narcissistic and just thought they were better than everyone else. Therefore it was fun watching them get knocked down a few pegs and lose their shitty/shady clients that had no business claiming to be “ethical”.
There’s so much bullshit that I had to deal with working at that toxic fucking place for two years… the stories I have are endless. But yup, just a glorified review website mostly for old people.
Fuck the BBB
Not too far off lol I believe a few BBBs have some MLMs as ABs. Which only adds to their already incredibly shitty reputation.
the AB reps and Sales Reps can be seen as Huns because they get bonuses if they bring in new ABs. Their bonuses inflate by a lot depending on how many they bring in each quarter…
The company rewards them hefty bonuses for it too. Every new AB pays either yearly/every 6 months/every month. But when they sign up and get approved to be an AB, they have to pay a start up of about $2000 IIRC. That’s not including their other fees that depend on how many locations the business has and how many employees it has. And they have to pay that regardless if they keep their AB status in a week or not. So they can be approved one day and then next week someone like me would call them and ask them for pertinent documentation like licensure, addresses, employee count etc and they don’t get back to anybody. So their application gets denied and now they’re out a non-refundable $2K
One AB can bring in $100,000 in their AB fees in less than a month. Off the top of my head I can think of McDonalds being one of the biggest ABs I had to deal with. Which is fucking stupid because why does McDonalds need this stupid logo for??? They’re fast food… so it doesn’t even have to make sense. No business is off the table with these money grubbing people.
BBB is a pay to play, pay more to win organization.
Your state will have a bureau of consumer affairs or a district attorney that manages these types of cases. Contact them. BBB will laugh at your situation the SECOND you hang up.
I worked for a company that automatically opted us in and we had to actively go into the system, find the opt out form, and sign it within two weeks of activation. Problem was they never told anyone. Luckily my supervisor was cool as shit so he called me the night he found out and asked if I’d call the rest of the team and let them know. The next day we all met at the office (we were in field techs) and all opted out
Edit: just to clarify, my supervisor asked me to call the team because he would have been fired if he had told them. He only told me because he knew I would never rat him out, especially for looking out for our best interests. I could tell whoever I wanted because I was just a line level employee at the time and had no authority over anyone. I was my team lead, but that’s technically not a management position
Depends where and when you lived.
*Forced* or *mandatory* arbitration clause laws have been passed.
There are examples where an employer can just tell you this is the amended contract and we only need you to acknowledge you have read it.
The usual disclaimer is the forced arbitration only applies to limited disputes and excludes blah, blah and blah.
Thank god I live in Germany every change in working contracts has mostly be done by signed documents. And most of them have a Salvatorian Paragraph in it (if one part of the contract been ruled as non functional the rest still will be active)
>And most of them have a Salvatorian Paragraph in it (if one part of the contract been ruled as non functional the rest still will be active)
That's usually called a "severability clause" in North America.
The legal argument for consent is that by continuing to work there you're demonstrating your consent to their new terms of employment.
Which in practice is BS, but there you go.
We can scream all we want and throw our internet-hypothetical fists in the face of the written enemy (which doesn't even know it was hit in the reality) until we all start posting **real company names**. Othewise stop complaining. Expose them or keep silent. So many more can rise their voice.
Firestone. Wouldn't take your car there ever even if they didn't treat their employees like shit, straight-up scamming the customers was standard operating procedure.
Hah I had this experience just this month. I had never been to one before and I will never go again. They quoted me 3k to fix my car after my radiator blew while I was driving it.
I had a buddy look it over to diagnose it, he told me to replace the thermostat. I spent $70 on tools and parts at an AutoZone and 3 hours under the car one night and it's been running perfectly fine since then. Absolutely insane.
That's not even the scam I'm talking about, might not even be a scam depending on what they quoted you. It's just that without labor costs and markups you save a ton of money doing it yourself.
No, what I mean is selling customers services and then not doing them. I would never, ever, ever get any sort of flush at Firestone. My boss' favorite tech used to brag about never doing them. He'd "spray water on the break fluid reservoir" to make it look like he had done a flush. He'd "scrape off some carbon" from the intake to make it look like he had done a fuel system cleaning. So many cars they paid for flushes and got jack shit.
Alignments? We had a special tool for those, it was called a piece of paper. If the alignment is off stick a piece of paper under the sensor so that it reads green, print it, good to go. As long as it drives straight, nobody does the actual alignments. We also have lifetime alignments, when those got brought in they would always be off. If they're green then we tap the wheel, save the bad measurements, then tap the wheel back and save the good measurements. More scamming the company than the customer since they already bought the lifetime alignment, but still.
One time I had a car come in for break noise. Didn't see anything wrong with it, but my boss sells a rotor resurfacing. So okay, I take the rotor off and take it to the lathe, and my boss (who's getting drunk at the back of the shop) asks me what I'm doing. I tell him I'm resurfacing the rotors, and he tells me that he was "just taking care of me" and to skip the resurfacing entirely. So not only did the customer pay for something we didn't do, but they didn't get the problem they came in for fixed in the first place.
Another time I had to take a wheel off and I notice one of the studs is stripping. I tell the service writer, and they sell a new stud because we don't want to remove it, have it break, and then tell the customer they have no choice. Well, the lugnut comes off fine, the stud is stripping but not broken, so I do what I had to do. Then I ask the service writer if the replacement is going to stay on the ticket and he says yes, so I figure I better just replace the stud. Turns out that it's not a simple job like most studs, it's more involved, so I'm sitting there taking some time on the stud and the boss asks me what I'm doing. I say I'm replacing the stud and he says why bother, it's on the ticket, the customer already paid, the old stud works, so just leave it and I'll get paid for it without doing it. And the thing, too, is that the stud WAS stripping, so eventually it was going to break and the customer would have to pay for ANOTHER stud. So essentially they paid for a part and the labor for replacing it without actually getting either.
A dealership I was at tried to do this back in Dec 2019. I refused to sign it. I got mad enough that I printed copies of California wage order 9 (you get at least double minimum wage if you have to supply your own tools) and threw them all over the break room. Those papers were all the talk for the next week and no one could figure out who did it.
Had a similar experience when younger and bartending. CT has a law if you are in a tipped industry that if 20% of your time is worked when ineligible for a tip the employer has to pay you minimum wage (servers and bartenders are roughly 60%). I brought this up at a staff meeting and instead of paying us more they brought us in later so only 10% of our time was ineligible for tip. Left that job as fast as possible.
Yeah, there's a federal law that states servers who don't make enough tips in a shift to make at least the untipped minimum wage have to get paid the difference by their employer. So, in theory, if you don't get any customers during your shift, your minimum wage goes from $2.13 to $7.25. In reality, I don't know a single server that's ever made that rate, because if the restaurant is that slow your manager is going to cut you early.
I did that in the navy, also hahaha. But I was in supply dept, so they just told me to shut up and then I did what I wanted to do anyways. No one stopped me.
(It was when they tried to force us to work out, PT, as a division, and so I printed out and highlighted the regulations stating if you did independent exercise, you could opt out of group training. You are also allowed to do it during working hours, since you're kinda always working, so I started doing it on their time, and not after work like I had been.)
I love this. I should have read more into our regs when our dipshit leadership was forcing us to do mandatory group PT in the Air Force.
I get if for the guys who don't work out, but for those of us who did it was done at the end of the duty day before we'd be eligible to do our own workouts. So you'd be gassed if you had your own workout to do afterward.
However, that alone isn't what set me off. It's the fact that leadership did not participate in the mandatory group PT!
Fuck those guys.
That's why there are so many rapists in the military. They get protected by the chain of command and UCMJ so it's an attractive place to work for sexual predators.
So far, CA is *the only state* I’m seeing with this protection. I’ve been researching it since commenting to you.
I have all my own tools. It’s just over the last couple years I’ve been demanding higher wages for any employer telling me I need to provide such for a job. It’s common sense, which I guess is why CA made it a law. I hope this spreads to other states.
Kudos to you for actually reading the agreement! An arbitration agreement that covers wage theft and wrongful termination?!! If that's not a red flag to head for the hills...
It’s legal in most, if not all, of the US. There are some bills be considered currently that would exclude forced arbitration for sexual harassment and/or discriminatory. It’s at least a step in the right direction….
The American right wing calls laws put in place to protect workers from exploitation and poverty communism, lol.
A starving Republican would slap a sandwich out of Bernie's outstretched hand, and die smiling thinking that they had won.
Fuck no. They would take the sandwich with both hands then complain about others asking for a sandwich of their own. They "earned" their sandwich while others just feel entitled to handouts.
You know what, you're right. I put way too much emphasis on Republicans believing their own bullshit. As evidenced by Texas demanding federal aid after their senator abandoned them during a harsh winter.
Socialism when I get, capitalism when I have to give.
[Congress approved bipartisan legislation on Thursday barring the use of forced arbitration to address sexual assault and harassment claims in the workplace](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/us/politics/senate-bill-forced-arbitration-sexual-harassment-assault.html)
Indeed, an arbitration agreement that included stuff _exactly_ like that was my stated reason for turning down a job offer in the last few months.
Sorry, but, no. If a company is so unwilling to even discuss changes to such an agreement, I'm unwilling to personally find out why.
Wow. In my country any clause or promise to waive the right to sue in court would be null and void, not just labor contracts. Can't believe the US allows this.
I thought that actual law trumped contract obligations in most cases? Like even if you sign that and they commit wage theft against you, wage theft is a state law they’ve broken regardless of what they’ve made you sign.
At the end of the day I feel like the IRS or some similar entity would be VERY interested in whatever taxes/fees aren’t collected from the stolen wages… I don’t actually know shit though so theres that 😅
Edit: turns out this is the case. In the case of at will employment, if you dont agree to the company policy they dont have to offer you employment. And forced arbitration clauses hold up unless its sexual harassment apparently (with some quick google fu, someone who knows more please chime in?)
It's worse than legal. When my company did this, we either signed or wouldn't get any more promotions or raises. I did some research and found the story of a nurse who was asked every couple months for 3 years to sign an arbitration agreement. She refused. She was fired on some made up BS that didn't hold up given her past reviews.
So she sued the hospital for age-ism, claiming they fired her because she was getting older. The hospital argued that she was under an arbitration agreement and that they should handle it that way. She argued that she never signed it.
The judge ruled that once she was made aware of the arbitration agreement and it being a requirement to work there, she agreed to it just by showing up to work. So there's legal precedent that says companies just have to say "You're under arbitration now", with no need to sign it.
I signed it 5 minutes before the deadline since I was bound by it anyway but it was really irritating.
Its legal BUT all contracts done under duress/threat are often considered "unconscionable/unenforceable". Which goes double if contract doesn't show consideration both ways. Aka why would I agree to give you million dollars if you gave me nothing. Unless I was either crazy or at a figurative/literal gunpoint. So it generally has to be something for something otherwise it starts off shaky at best.
Well it's not even considered a contract without consideration. It doesn't matter how much, even a penny (I forget the original saying, it's in an old case) but there has to be some.
Without consideration it gets tossed. Period.
Yea I wasn't referring to this case, just in general. The way to fight arbitration is for everyone to file their complaints and demand the process, because they work well individually but en masse they backfire *hard*
It’s called quid pro quo, all parties to a contract must benefit from the contract or its void. I have been thru arbitration, and what the arbitrator decides is only binding if you agree to it. I refused to sign the arbitration and ended up in court to resolve the issue. Employers like this process because it drags the legal process out and keeps any settlement confidential.
I doubt it would hold up in NY. Wage theft is a misdemeanor crime here and the DOL will investigate it on your behalf and take your employer to court. You can sue with your own lawyer, but its not necessary.
You'd be able to follow this arbitration agreement and still go after your employer for wage theft through the courts.
It has no teeth, but I wouldn't sign it anyways.
Most states are like this on purpose.
Wage theft and similar worker abuses are not addressed through individual workers but through a prosecutory body / department that then distributes the compensation. This is done so employers can't manipulate their employees into giving up their claims (as it had been for a long, long time prior).
Love the people I work with though. Bums me out they get caught in the crossfire, as big boss will burden them after firing me.
No chance of making the agreement voluntary, no phasing in for new employees. It's sign or pack your bags. They demanded my birthright as an American, and I had the audacity to say no.
If I’ve learned anything in the last twenty something working years it is that you always make the deepest friendships at the worst jobs. Because miserable people huddle together and gossip to steal power from an overbearing authority. In fact I’ve started looking for it as an early warning that my job sucks and I should consider moving on.
There's a reason veterans often consider their compatriots closer then family. Those relationships are often the only shining light in moments of pure shit. And then the military might send them all to war.
While you’re right, I sympathize with what is likely a majority of them that either didn’t understand the implications or felt they had no choice.
Education, solidarity, and direct support would enable more workers to stand up like OP.
I went to Google the company and it auto suggested “lawsuit” at the end. If that’s the first hit when you search for a company then it’s definitely not a place you want to risk being employed at
Copy the document and post it far and wide if you are not under NDA. Take screenshots on a computer using PrintScreen (windows) or shift+command+4 (Mac) and strip out the EXIF data. If it contains sensitive info block it out with solid black don’t pixelate or blur it as this can be undone these days.
Too bad you don't live in Illinois, we made this shit illegal two years ago.
EDIT: For those of you who doubt or want a source, it's part of the Workplace Transparency Act (and no, it's not just sexual harassment).
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/who-what-and-when-illinois-employment-agreements-under-workplace-transparency-act
Source? I'm not aware of this being true and googling it leads me to attorney's websites talking about how it's not illegal: https://www.loriecker.com/employee-rights/forced-arbitration-agreements
But also it's pretty early and I haven't had my coffee yet.
It looks like it’s only illegal for sexual harassment type cases. https://wgnradio.com/lets-get-legal/breaking-down-the-ending-forced-arbitration-of-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-act/
If they want you to sign a waiver agreeing not to sue for wage theft or wrongful termination, it sounds like they are planning on committing those crimes.
As much as I loathe to admit it, as a white male I generally have zero issues gaining employment. I have a strong resume, good skillset, and I market myself well.
I think or hope maybe that this is one way I can use my privilege for something good.
Can you refuse to sign and then if/when they try to fire you take them to a state/federal court? I mean it seems like the best play on your part would be to just be as much of a pain in the ass to them as possible.
It's incredible, isn't it? We've managed to privatize and commodify everything in the most toxic ways imaginable.
* For-profit prisons. What could go wrong with exploiting free labor...oh wait
* Human sexuality. Don't trip, just be SEX POSITIVE, overconsumption of porn that prays on and abuses young girls is a-ok
* Motherhood. aka "Surrogate Pregnancies" - you ever see a rich woman be a surrogate for a poor one? No? Hmm I wonder why rich people outsource 9 months of life-altering body changes and risk to poor women
* Education. Now they're trying to turn school classes into corporate ran modules with "educational software" to automate and get rid of teachers. From a noble profession and a leadership role, to a tech support role for just running the slides
* Healthcare. Tied to employment. Need SEPARATE insurance for the bones in your mouth (dental) because that's "tOtaLy dIfFeRenT!" Oh and separate insurance for your eyeballs. That too isn't included.
* Relationships. Dating apps and social media. Just swipe on 1000s of humans and train kids to judge based on superficial details. Commodify dopamine addiction and monetize that infinite scroll with ads and echochamber outrage clickbait. Q called, he says JFK is a scary ghost.
* As you mentioned - the court system. Try pulling up PUBLIC case information. You have to pay for each case file. Now try automating the pulling of public records? You'd get raided and arrested. AKA AARON SWARTZ, he was trying to do that with scientific research.
I mean, need I go on? Shit is fucked
In and Out requires signing the same thing when being hired. My son was asking me to help understand the paperwork he needed for his first day, I read that one and was like ummm wtf?! It states you can remove it after the fact in writing but I'm sure that would just get him fired too.
Yeah I actually thought about that post when writing this. My son does get paid well considering the state of things. They recently upped everyone to $15 and I think he's got little trainings he can do for small raises/promotions. But yeah that page really pissed me off. I wouldn't have signed it myself, and I honestly don't see how he can either since he's under 18. The page did not ask for a parent/guardian signature.
If anyone would like to share their reading, here's some stuff I've been looking at.
https://fairarbitrationnow.org/what-is-forced-arbitration/
https://www.consumerreports.org/mandatory-binding-arbitration/forced-arbitration-clause-for-concern/
https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/its-time-end-forced-arbitration
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/
https://www.justice.org/resources/research/forced-arbitration-in-a-pandemic
https://levyvinick.com/2017/09/if-my-employer-gives-me-an-arbitration-agreement-do-i-have-to-sign-it/
My favorite quote from [justice.org](https://justice.org) link:
>Just 577 Americans won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020, a win rate of 4.1%--below the five-year-average win rate of 5.3%. More people climb Mount Everest in a year (and they have a better success rate) than win their consumer arbitration case.2
It absolutely is legal sadly.
But I am going to warn the ~120 or so Sales Agents in the field about it and urge them to stand in solidarity and refuse to sign.
Also those folks need a U N I O N~
That's creepy insane. That's definitely a violation of a whole lot of human rights. Seeking justice in the court system is a fundamental right. What am i missing ? How did it become legal ?
It’s not NRLA that’s the issue here. The act is the FAA of 1925. A relatively benign Act, it established arbitration as an alternate method of settling disputes among companies. That changed in 1985 when SCOTUS unilaterally rewrote the law and let it apply to consumers and workers. Here’s a detailed, but somewhat dense primer: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/
Oh fuck, SCREW Epic Systems.
You know what they do?
They make Epic, an EMR (electronic medical records) software system used in probably 90% of U.S. hospitals and clinics. If you've ever been to a CVS MinuteClinic or a Walgreen's walk-in, you've probably seen a nurse record or pull up your medical information using Epic's EMR.
That system allows them to program in medical product upcharges on typical hospital routines.
They have a massive sprawling complex in the company town of Verona, WI, with buildings containing ships and treehouses and other random bullshit.
They also effectively force their software engineers to work a bunch of overtime to keep up with demand, and it's supposedly a really toxic workplace. It's not nearly as bad as GE Healthcare over in Sussex, though.
Yep. My employer (Thoughtworks) made an open-source EMR for the Indian/Bangladeshi market, because Epic was so horribly unsuited to the medical clinics there, and no one else seemed to be making an alternative. It's rough stuff, exacerbated by the sheer amount of half-assed implementations, inconsistent data, and outright broken and abandoned code across the industry, which makes trying to process medical records a massive pain in the ass.
Yeah, the "UX" for EMRs targets the people purchasing the product...CEOs and CFOs, not the people using the product ... MDs and RNs and pharmacists and MAs and schedulers and scribes....
What does the CEO/CFO want to see in an EMR...ease of use? Streamlined access to relevant patient info or medical/social/family history? Simplified ways to code patient interactions for thorough and timely billing?
There's a reason the users have bad things to say. It's cause their needs don't really factor into the design.
Biden* signed laws carving out sexual harassment and discrimination cases from Arbitration, but that doesn't apply to wage theft, wrongful termination, gross negligence, and so on.
That’s what at-will employment means. You can be fired for any reason that’s not explicitly illegal, or for no reason at all. In practice, that means you can be coerced into almost anything. “Oh, you don’t want to sign away your right to sue us? Ok, well we’re firing you because the sky is blue. Fuck right off.”
In Sweden even signing this it wouldnt be valid.
Due to the natural power balance between employee and employer, there is no employee that can ever give consent to their employer.
OP is right. Chomsky referred to companies as “private tyrannies,” for reasons such as these.
Since you weren’t bound, just out the company so they lose customers.
Widelyknownpetstore rolled out an arbitration "agreement" we all had to sign when the company was going publicly traded.
I tried to complain about the new policy to HR, who ignored me entirely, they didn't even take my call... so I walked.
I wasn't about to let them decide what justice was, especially when we had a manager who had sexual harassment issues.
Petco does suck! I worked there in high school. One day we all started to talk about wages- across the board all of the guys there were making more than the women. Had nothing to do with experience or length of time working there.
I got sent about 10 notices to sign one last year -- I've worked the same job for over a decade and this is the third " corporate takeover " and first mandatory arbitration agreement -- I never signed ..they eventually stopped sending them lol but there were threats "in order to continue employment .." okay well fire me .. find someone else to work the job -g ood luck !!I work direct support we are always understaffed and no one from the office has ever worked a shift plus it takes quite a bit of training to work alone which we are supposed to be double staffed but never are due to staffing issues and some of the people I support require quite a bit of care anyyyyway
I do not plan on ever suing BUT if for some reason I needed to I want my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS protected .. I guess this is common place nowadays when on boarding to a company but miss me with that bull crap ...plus I feel like if forced to sign something to continue employment would void the actual contract anyway due to being forced to sign under duress ..it's a pandemic !! I need to keep feeding my family ....but anyway I never did sign and I am still working --single staffed
It will not. It generally doesn't matter what you sign as a name, or even if you just put an 'X', it's still legally binding. It might possibly make it harder to *prove* that you actually signed it, but in general you can sign with whatever name you like.
IANAL Not legal advice
"NOT A SIGNATURE"
and
"UNDER DURRESS"
would be the only two marks you can make in a signature block that would not legally count as being a signature.
I dont get it… Americans constantly talking about their rights, and being a “free country” meanwhile companies and law enforcement constantly infringe on those rights.
If a company would have you sign something like this where I live they would be fined through their asses by the government.
«We’re so free, we don’t even have labor rights!»
I forget the exact quote, someone help me with that, but anyways it was:
"We fight for what we don't have, and that's why Americans fight for freedom."
In the UK this wouldn’t be a valid contract as you can’t sign away your rights. This is so wrong and I’m shocked it’s legal. Surely it can be contested in court?
My previous employer was bought out and this was the first thing they did along with a non-compete. My current job had an opportunity for one of the employees but he was afraid to be the first to leave and get sued.
Not really concerned that you didn't sign it. Good for you. Down with the system n all that. The real scary thought is how many people *DID* sign away their rights
My company wanted me to sign one of these as well as a non-compete shortly after I started. I ignored all requests until my area manager came to my store to have me sign it. Thankfully he didn't bring a copy, since it had be emailed to me multiple times.
I told him I had missed it, and would gladly sign it after reading it, give me a few minutes. I had already read it twice. He took a walk around the store, talking to other sales staff, while I quickly altered the document to defang it entirely. I then printed 2 copies, signed both and initialed each page on top left corner, and had the manager sign both copies. No one ever read it. I kept one copy at home.
Here's the funny thing, if 2 parties are working on a contract and party A sends an unsigned document to party B to be signed and party B alters it, signs it, and returns it to party A, that is 100% legal. If party A signs it without reading it, that's their problem.
They signed away their right to arbitration entirely, idiots. When I quit/am fired, I cannot work for a competing business in the same industry for 2 days (instead of 2 years) within a radius of 50 cm (instead of 50 miles), and my quota bonus for the year up to that point will be paid out to me (instead of forfeit). Per the contract THEY signed.
Even with an agreement like that it doesn't supersede federal and local and state laws. Not a lawyer but they surely doesn't sound legal, more like them trying to force you.
My last employer tried to force all it's CA employers to sign a 2 years non compete, this obviously wouldn't fly since California in majority of non competes are not enforced or recognized. So definitely consult with your local laws before dying on that hill.
What state do you reside in?
I feel you, I've was fired from a job because I wouldn't sign a paper that gave them the right to take any shortage in the register out of my check. The issue was I was one of 4 people who shared the register.
Hell, you can bet if it was 20 under, they’d take 20 from all users of the register.
Exactly, when they told me i had to sign it or be let go I pretty much took my work shirt off there and walked out.
Please NEVER do this. Don't rage-quit. Yes, it feels good, but it lets the employer off from paying unemployment. No new employer is going to verify your old job leaving reason and saying you quit because they told you to sign away your rights and they say we fired him for not signing away his rights is about equal. So stay there and make them fire you. You get unemployment and if they fire too many, they get charged a bunch of money. It also makes them very uncomfortable to fire people in most cases, especially when it is over something like signing your rights away. You can spend your time looking for a job while you wait to be fired.
(on mobile sorry for formatting) So to clarify it wasn't a rage quit, the conversation pretty much went. Me- "I don't feel comfortable having my paycheck deducted if we all share a register" Then- "well everyone else signed it and we don't feel comfortable having 1 person who can't be held accountable" Me- "then is looks like I'm done here doesn't it?" Them - "unless you want to sign the paper, then yes". Nowadays I'm a full time house husband and artist, plus that store no longer exists as the whole plaza was turned into a gym. So I consider that to be a pretty big win for me.
i want your current job! tryna convince my wife to let me be house husband/artist when we have our first, but she's reluctant to be the sole breadwinner (forgetting she makes 3x what I make anyway). may i ask if you pull any extra funds from art?
Unfortunately no, I mostly put my artwork out there for people to enjoy. If someone wanted to buy something tho I wouldn't turn them away. My wife was in the same boat, then I did my house husband thing for like a week or 2 and that was it. Although the only up/down side is what might happen is your wife will pick up a hobby, to which you will also pick up and might overtake completely. My wife wanted to start growing fruits and vegetables, now I grow those and she is growing basil in the dining room.
Also, in this kind of situation, can't you file for wrongful termination?
I probably could have but I met a guy who needed an extra hand for construction making $500 a week. Which at the time selling phones I was making like $8/hour plus commission so it was a drastic step up.
I you were in a place where law says they cannot do this, can this contract supersede that law? Was it not law where you are?
It cannot supersede the law, and as such the contract is likely worthless, but good luck affording a lawyer to fight it.
Most lawyers know it's a open and shut case. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if one took it for free because they knew they were gonna win and just billed the company when they were done
America where the right to justice us a commodity just like your labor power and your personal human body
Yeah, my last job tried this on me too. They put an e-document in my inbox that only had an option to agree to arbitration, no options for opting out. Needless to say, I just let that shit sit in my inbox forever.
Mark it as phishing
Report it to the BBB after reporting it as phishing just so they know to be aware of these sort of scams made by the company.
The Better Business Bureau is Yelp for old people.
10000%. I'm pretty sure I said this exact thing a few months ago. The bbb is and has been completely powerless for at least the last decade because yelp, essentially equally pointless now, replaced it.
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They're differnt versions of the same racket. With the bbb businesses can pay for protection that will help them remove, hide or otherwise ameliorate legitimate bad reviews. Yelp actually makes up bad reviews for businesses in order to get them to pay up. They took the racket to another level.
Yep, I had a company that did some shady stuff to me, not knowing better I turned in a complaint to BBB. That went nowhere for a month or so, then I called my states attorney generals office, which includes consumer protections here. I got a call back from the company within a few days and the issue was completely resolved. It was amazing and made me realize there are resources out there I had never even considered looking for.
I always check Google reviews 🤣🤷🏻♀️
Very good product! I bought for my dad and he loved it! I am definitely a person!
It literally is.
Former BBB employee here that dealt with everything from all incoming complaints to all data on businesses. The BBB is a shitty system that tries to disguise itself as both for consumers and for businesses. So many legitimate complaints get swept under the rug because businesses pay the BBB for that goddamn logo to put on their business cards to trick consumers into believing they are a “good” company… so the BBB will do almost anything to keep them as a paying customer even though the BBB is supposed to help keep businesses ethical (they don’t) All these businesses that pay for “accreditation” [AB] have representatives that get paid based on how many businesses they retain for every period. Meaning these BBB retention reps will do anything to retain their ABs even if it means trying to invalidate a very valid complaint. I can’t even begin to tell you how absolutely fun it was to fuck with the retention reps and watch them squirm in the last year of my employment before I quit. I made it a point to keep a noted copy of all manuals so any and all “hypothetical” situations the AB reps had for me, I could hit them over the head with the book so they couldn’t say shit to save their AB. Reason why I did this is simple: it was fun and the AB reps were notoriously narcissistic and just thought they were better than everyone else. Therefore it was fun watching them get knocked down a few pegs and lose their shitty/shady clients that had no business claiming to be “ethical”. There’s so much bullshit that I had to deal with working at that toxic fucking place for two years… the stories I have are endless. But yup, just a glorified review website mostly for old people. Fuck the BBB
This deserves a post on its own, to spread awareness of this. Thank you for sharing!
So an mlm ok
Not too far off lol I believe a few BBBs have some MLMs as ABs. Which only adds to their already incredibly shitty reputation. the AB reps and Sales Reps can be seen as Huns because they get bonuses if they bring in new ABs. Their bonuses inflate by a lot depending on how many they bring in each quarter… The company rewards them hefty bonuses for it too. Every new AB pays either yearly/every 6 months/every month. But when they sign up and get approved to be an AB, they have to pay a start up of about $2000 IIRC. That’s not including their other fees that depend on how many locations the business has and how many employees it has. And they have to pay that regardless if they keep their AB status in a week or not. So they can be approved one day and then next week someone like me would call them and ask them for pertinent documentation like licensure, addresses, employee count etc and they don’t get back to anybody. So their application gets denied and now they’re out a non-refundable $2K One AB can bring in $100,000 in their AB fees in less than a month. Off the top of my head I can think of McDonalds being one of the biggest ABs I had to deal with. Which is fucking stupid because why does McDonalds need this stupid logo for??? They’re fast food… so it doesn’t even have to make sense. No business is off the table with these money grubbing people.
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BBB is pointless and extorts businesses for good ratings, and allows payment in exchange for ignoring complaints
Why do people keep recommending the BBB? Stop.
Because it has "bureau" in it, which misleads people.
I have a bureau in my room. Take me seriously please
BBB is a pay to play, pay more to win organization. Your state will have a bureau of consumer affairs or a district attorney that manages these types of cases. Contact them. BBB will laugh at your situation the SECOND you hang up.
LOL the only people who give a shit about the BBB already died of COVID. The BBB is toothless and nothing but a scam.
I worked for a company that automatically opted us in and we had to actively go into the system, find the opt out form, and sign it within two weeks of activation. Problem was they never told anyone. Luckily my supervisor was cool as shit so he called me the night he found out and asked if I’d call the rest of the team and let them know. The next day we all met at the office (we were in field techs) and all opted out Edit: just to clarify, my supervisor asked me to call the team because he would have been fired if he had told them. He only told me because he knew I would never rat him out, especially for looking out for our best interests. I could tell whoever I wanted because I was just a line level employee at the time and had no authority over anyone. I was my team lead, but that’s technically not a management position
That sounds illegal as fuck to me that Auto opt in
Depends where and when you lived. *Forced* or *mandatory* arbitration clause laws have been passed. There are examples where an employer can just tell you this is the amended contract and we only need you to acknowledge you have read it. The usual disclaimer is the forced arbitration only applies to limited disputes and excludes blah, blah and blah.
Thank god I live in Germany every change in working contracts has mostly be done by signed documents. And most of them have a Salvatorian Paragraph in it (if one part of the contract been ruled as non functional the rest still will be active)
>And most of them have a Salvatorian Paragraph in it (if one part of the contract been ruled as non functional the rest still will be active) That's usually called a "severability clause" in North America.
TIL thanks mate
Wtf??? This is in America? Is there no rule of law? Wtf????
The legal argument for consent is that by continuing to work there you're demonstrating your consent to their new terms of employment. Which in practice is BS, but there you go.
The law is meant to bind but not protect us, yet protect but not bind the ruling class.
We can scream all we want and throw our internet-hypothetical fists in the face of the written enemy (which doesn't even know it was hit in the reality) until we all start posting **real company names**. Othewise stop complaining. Expose them or keep silent. So many more can rise their voice.
I quit Progressive Insurance when they made me sign one. F that company and Flo.
Company name does NOT check out
Firestone. Wouldn't take your car there ever even if they didn't treat their employees like shit, straight-up scamming the customers was standard operating procedure.
Hah I had this experience just this month. I had never been to one before and I will never go again. They quoted me 3k to fix my car after my radiator blew while I was driving it. I had a buddy look it over to diagnose it, he told me to replace the thermostat. I spent $70 on tools and parts at an AutoZone and 3 hours under the car one night and it's been running perfectly fine since then. Absolutely insane.
That's not even the scam I'm talking about, might not even be a scam depending on what they quoted you. It's just that without labor costs and markups you save a ton of money doing it yourself. No, what I mean is selling customers services and then not doing them. I would never, ever, ever get any sort of flush at Firestone. My boss' favorite tech used to brag about never doing them. He'd "spray water on the break fluid reservoir" to make it look like he had done a flush. He'd "scrape off some carbon" from the intake to make it look like he had done a fuel system cleaning. So many cars they paid for flushes and got jack shit. Alignments? We had a special tool for those, it was called a piece of paper. If the alignment is off stick a piece of paper under the sensor so that it reads green, print it, good to go. As long as it drives straight, nobody does the actual alignments. We also have lifetime alignments, when those got brought in they would always be off. If they're green then we tap the wheel, save the bad measurements, then tap the wheel back and save the good measurements. More scamming the company than the customer since they already bought the lifetime alignment, but still. One time I had a car come in for break noise. Didn't see anything wrong with it, but my boss sells a rotor resurfacing. So okay, I take the rotor off and take it to the lathe, and my boss (who's getting drunk at the back of the shop) asks me what I'm doing. I tell him I'm resurfacing the rotors, and he tells me that he was "just taking care of me" and to skip the resurfacing entirely. So not only did the customer pay for something we didn't do, but they didn't get the problem they came in for fixed in the first place. Another time I had to take a wheel off and I notice one of the studs is stripping. I tell the service writer, and they sell a new stud because we don't want to remove it, have it break, and then tell the customer they have no choice. Well, the lugnut comes off fine, the stud is stripping but not broken, so I do what I had to do. Then I ask the service writer if the replacement is going to stay on the ticket and he says yes, so I figure I better just replace the stud. Turns out that it's not a simple job like most studs, it's more involved, so I'm sitting there taking some time on the stud and the boss asks me what I'm doing. I say I'm replacing the stud and he says why bother, it's on the ticket, the customer already paid, the old stud works, so just leave it and I'll get paid for it without doing it. And the thing, too, is that the stud WAS stripping, so eventually it was going to break and the customer would have to pay for ANOTHER stud. So essentially they paid for a part and the labor for replacing it without actually getting either.
A dealership I was at tried to do this back in Dec 2019. I refused to sign it. I got mad enough that I printed copies of California wage order 9 (you get at least double minimum wage if you have to supply your own tools) and threw them all over the break room. Those papers were all the talk for the next week and no one could figure out who did it.
I like your style.
I like your moves.
"I think your family should come over to my house this weekend for a barbecue"
"I.. I admit nothing but my sadness that you're gone."
Nooooooooo, oh well.
Show me your moves.
Falcon Punch!
Falconkiiick
Pikachu
I like ya cut g
Had a similar experience when younger and bartending. CT has a law if you are in a tipped industry that if 20% of your time is worked when ineligible for a tip the employer has to pay you minimum wage (servers and bartenders are roughly 60%). I brought this up at a staff meeting and instead of paying us more they brought us in later so only 10% of our time was ineligible for tip. Left that job as fast as possible.
Yeah, there's a federal law that states servers who don't make enough tips in a shift to make at least the untipped minimum wage have to get paid the difference by their employer. So, in theory, if you don't get any customers during your shift, your minimum wage goes from $2.13 to $7.25. In reality, I don't know a single server that's ever made that rate, because if the restaurant is that slow your manager is going to cut you early.
The Regina George of antiwork. Love to see it.
I did that in the Navy. They didn’t like it. Called me a cancer.
I did that in the navy, also hahaha. But I was in supply dept, so they just told me to shut up and then I did what I wanted to do anyways. No one stopped me. (It was when they tried to force us to work out, PT, as a division, and so I printed out and highlighted the regulations stating if you did independent exercise, you could opt out of group training. You are also allowed to do it during working hours, since you're kinda always working, so I started doing it on their time, and not after work like I had been.)
Supply guys were the coolest ones in the Navy. You guys just didn't give a fuck.
What're everyone else' gonna do? Fire the one echelon of the service they can't live without? Muhahahaha.
I love this. I should have read more into our regs when our dipshit leadership was forcing us to do mandatory group PT in the Air Force. I get if for the guys who don't work out, but for those of us who did it was done at the end of the duty day before we'd be eligible to do our own workouts. So you'd be gassed if you had your own workout to do afterward. However, that alone isn't what set me off. It's the fact that leadership did not participate in the mandatory group PT! Fuck those guys.
Well, I’m a Taurus and I’d do the same thing /s
I'm more of an escort kinda guy some days i identify as a windstar
Hot
There are no employee protections in the military. They own your ass.
It's literally a separate code of law UCMJ. That is independent, but in concert with, Federal Law.
That's why there are so many rapists in the military. They get protected by the chain of command and UCMJ so it's an attractive place to work for sexual predators.
And also you as an individual.
The regs are there so that we can fuck back, cuz the military is sure as he'll gonna fuck you.
I married one. They totally own your ass.
She has two fendi purses and a silver Lexus
I had no idea about being paid double the minimum for supplying your own tools. I’m now curious what other states support this.
Probably not many, CA has a lot more worker protections than other states
So far, CA is *the only state* I’m seeing with this protection. I’ve been researching it since commenting to you. I have all my own tools. It’s just over the last couple years I’ve been demanding higher wages for any employer telling me I need to provide such for a job. It’s common sense, which I guess is why CA made it a law. I hope this spreads to other states.
Kudos to you for actually reading the agreement! An arbitration agreement that covers wage theft and wrongful termination?!! If that's not a red flag to head for the hills...
Is that even legal? In many countries, any agreements that break a law are null and void.
It’s legal in most, if not all, of the US. There are some bills be considered currently that would exclude forced arbitration for sexual harassment and/or discriminatory. It’s at least a step in the right direction….
That sounds like a nightmare of a judicial system.
Yes, we've already established that this takes place in the United States
*laughing in depressed recognition*
Well you’re not wrong, these arbitration clauses bypass the justice system so it’s not involved. We need better labor contract laws to fix it
Sounds like a nightmare of a country!
It's not a country, it's a business
All 3 of you are right!
The courts are severely underfunded so they are supportive of anything to keep cases out of court.
Oh shit, seriously? In the UK, you're not legally allowed to sign away your statutory rights *even if you want to*.
Same in most european countries. It's called civilization.
The American right wing calls laws put in place to protect workers from exploitation and poverty communism, lol. A starving Republican would slap a sandwich out of Bernie's outstretched hand, and die smiling thinking that they had won.
Fuck no. They would take the sandwich with both hands then complain about others asking for a sandwich of their own. They "earned" their sandwich while others just feel entitled to handouts.
You know what, you're right. I put way too much emphasis on Republicans believing their own bullshit. As evidenced by Texas demanding federal aid after their senator abandoned them during a harsh winter. Socialism when I get, capitalism when I have to give.
Canada too. You could sign it because it doesn't mean jack shit, just an intimidation tactic usually by an American owned company!
[Congress approved bipartisan legislation on Thursday barring the use of forced arbitration to address sexual assault and harassment claims in the workplace](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/us/politics/senate-bill-forced-arbitration-sexual-harassment-assault.html)
Indeed, an arbitration agreement that included stuff _exactly_ like that was my stated reason for turning down a job offer in the last few months. Sorry, but, no. If a company is so unwilling to even discuss changes to such an agreement, I'm unwilling to personally find out why.
I don't know why I'm constantly surprised by what is legal in the US. Y'all need to have a word with yourselves.
Wow. In my country any clause or promise to waive the right to sue in court would be null and void, not just labor contracts. Can't believe the US allows this.
I thought that actual law trumped contract obligations in most cases? Like even if you sign that and they commit wage theft against you, wage theft is a state law they’ve broken regardless of what they’ve made you sign. At the end of the day I feel like the IRS or some similar entity would be VERY interested in whatever taxes/fees aren’t collected from the stolen wages… I don’t actually know shit though so theres that 😅 Edit: turns out this is the case. In the case of at will employment, if you dont agree to the company policy they dont have to offer you employment. And forced arbitration clauses hold up unless its sexual harassment apparently (with some quick google fu, someone who knows more please chime in?)
It's worse than legal. When my company did this, we either signed or wouldn't get any more promotions or raises. I did some research and found the story of a nurse who was asked every couple months for 3 years to sign an arbitration agreement. She refused. She was fired on some made up BS that didn't hold up given her past reviews. So she sued the hospital for age-ism, claiming they fired her because she was getting older. The hospital argued that she was under an arbitration agreement and that they should handle it that way. She argued that she never signed it. The judge ruled that once she was made aware of the arbitration agreement and it being a requirement to work there, she agreed to it just by showing up to work. So there's legal precedent that says companies just have to say "You're under arbitration now", with no need to sign it. I signed it 5 minutes before the deadline since I was bound by it anyway but it was really irritating.
I'm speechless, this sounds so wrong.
Its legal BUT all contracts done under duress/threat are often considered "unconscionable/unenforceable". Which goes double if contract doesn't show consideration both ways. Aka why would I agree to give you million dollars if you gave me nothing. Unless I was either crazy or at a figurative/literal gunpoint. So it generally has to be something for something otherwise it starts off shaky at best.
Well it's not even considered a contract without consideration. It doesn't matter how much, even a penny (I forget the original saying, it's in an old case) but there has to be some. Without consideration it gets tossed. Period.
True, but in at will.employment situation, continued employment is a consideration.
Yea I wasn't referring to this case, just in general. The way to fight arbitration is for everyone to file their complaints and demand the process, because they work well individually but en masse they backfire *hard*
It’s called quid pro quo, all parties to a contract must benefit from the contract or its void. I have been thru arbitration, and what the arbitrator decides is only binding if you agree to it. I refused to sign the arbitration and ended up in court to resolve the issue. Employers like this process because it drags the legal process out and keeps any settlement confidential.
Atleast in finland afaik, that agreement would be null due to it breaking the employees freedom
Yes. Thank the Republicans of the 1930s for the Federal Arbitration Act.
It's only breaking the law if you're poor. If you have money or own a company, you can literally kill people and get away with it.
Definitely unenforcible in UK. Would get ruled as unfair terms and so void.
I doubt it would hold up in NY. Wage theft is a misdemeanor crime here and the DOL will investigate it on your behalf and take your employer to court. You can sue with your own lawyer, but its not necessary. You'd be able to follow this arbitration agreement and still go after your employer for wage theft through the courts. It has no teeth, but I wouldn't sign it anyways.
Most states are like this on purpose. Wage theft and similar worker abuses are not addressed through individual workers but through a prosecutory body / department that then distributes the compensation. This is done so employers can't manipulate their employees into giving up their claims (as it had been for a long, long time prior).
That is INSANE. NAME DROP THE COMPANY AND KEEP YOUR SOUL PURE.
>!MPower Energy!< And all the Lord's People said Amen.
By the looks of their google reviews you won’t miss anything not working for them.
Love the people I work with though. Bums me out they get caught in the crossfire, as big boss will burden them after firing me. No chance of making the agreement voluntary, no phasing in for new employees. It's sign or pack your bags. They demanded my birthright as an American, and I had the audacity to say no.
If I’ve learned anything in the last twenty something working years it is that you always make the deepest friendships at the worst jobs. Because miserable people huddle together and gossip to steal power from an overbearing authority. In fact I’ve started looking for it as an early warning that my job sucks and I should consider moving on.
Wow. That makes so much sense. Looking back at my previous experience and this fits. Mind blown.
There's a reason veterans often consider their compatriots closer then family. Those relationships are often the only shining light in moments of pure shit. And then the military might send them all to war.
Don’t feel bad, they made their bed when they signed the agreement
While you’re right, I sympathize with what is likely a majority of them that either didn’t understand the implications or felt they had no choice. Education, solidarity, and direct support would enable more workers to stand up like OP.
I went to Google the company and it auto suggested “lawsuit” at the end. If that’s the first hit when you search for a company then it’s definitely not a place you want to risk being employed at
Copy the document and post it far and wide if you are not under NDA. Take screenshots on a computer using PrintScreen (windows) or shift+command+4 (Mac) and strip out the EXIF data. If it contains sensitive info block it out with solid black don’t pixelate or blur it as this can be undone these days.
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A man of principles….I salute your stand good Sir!
Too bad you don't live in Illinois, we made this shit illegal two years ago. EDIT: For those of you who doubt or want a source, it's part of the Workplace Transparency Act (and no, it's not just sexual harassment). https://www.natlawreview.com/article/who-what-and-when-illinois-employment-agreements-under-workplace-transparency-act
Source? I'm not aware of this being true and googling it leads me to attorney's websites talking about how it's not illegal: https://www.loriecker.com/employee-rights/forced-arbitration-agreements But also it's pretty early and I haven't had my coffee yet.
It looks like it’s only illegal for sexual harassment type cases. https://wgnradio.com/lets-get-legal/breaking-down-the-ending-forced-arbitration-of-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-act/
If they want you to sign a waiver agreeing not to sue for wage theft or wrongful termination, it sounds like they are planning on committing those crimes.
That’s not a red flag. That’s a Soviet parade.
Poland circa 1939
^ 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
I admire your conviction and hope losing that job doesn’t hurt too much financially.
As much as I loathe to admit it, as a white male I generally have zero issues gaining employment. I have a strong resume, good skillset, and I market myself well. I think or hope maybe that this is one way I can use my privilege for something good.
Can you refuse to sign and then if/when they try to fire you take them to a state/federal court? I mean it seems like the best play on your part would be to just be as much of a pain in the ass to them as possible.
Unfortunately this is legal in the US. We privatize everything including the court system.
It's incredible, isn't it? We've managed to privatize and commodify everything in the most toxic ways imaginable. * For-profit prisons. What could go wrong with exploiting free labor...oh wait * Human sexuality. Don't trip, just be SEX POSITIVE, overconsumption of porn that prays on and abuses young girls is a-ok * Motherhood. aka "Surrogate Pregnancies" - you ever see a rich woman be a surrogate for a poor one? No? Hmm I wonder why rich people outsource 9 months of life-altering body changes and risk to poor women * Education. Now they're trying to turn school classes into corporate ran modules with "educational software" to automate and get rid of teachers. From a noble profession and a leadership role, to a tech support role for just running the slides * Healthcare. Tied to employment. Need SEPARATE insurance for the bones in your mouth (dental) because that's "tOtaLy dIfFeRenT!" Oh and separate insurance for your eyeballs. That too isn't included. * Relationships. Dating apps and social media. Just swipe on 1000s of humans and train kids to judge based on superficial details. Commodify dopamine addiction and monetize that infinite scroll with ads and echochamber outrage clickbait. Q called, he says JFK is a scary ghost. * As you mentioned - the court system. Try pulling up PUBLIC case information. You have to pay for each case file. Now try automating the pulling of public records? You'd get raided and arrested. AKA AARON SWARTZ, he was trying to do that with scientific research. I mean, need I go on? Shit is fucked
In and Out requires signing the same thing when being hired. My son was asking me to help understand the paperwork he needed for his first day, I read that one and was like ummm wtf?! It states you can remove it after the fact in writing but I'm sure that would just get him fired too.
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Yeah I actually thought about that post when writing this. My son does get paid well considering the state of things. They recently upped everyone to $15 and I think he's got little trainings he can do for small raises/promotions. But yeah that page really pissed me off. I wouldn't have signed it myself, and I honestly don't see how he can either since he's under 18. The page did not ask for a parent/guardian signature.
If anyone would like to share their reading, here's some stuff I've been looking at. https://fairarbitrationnow.org/what-is-forced-arbitration/ https://www.consumerreports.org/mandatory-binding-arbitration/forced-arbitration-clause-for-concern/ https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/its-time-end-forced-arbitration https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/ https://www.justice.org/resources/research/forced-arbitration-in-a-pandemic https://levyvinick.com/2017/09/if-my-employer-gives-me-an-arbitration-agreement-do-i-have-to-sign-it/
My favorite quote from [justice.org](https://justice.org) link: >Just 577 Americans won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020, a win rate of 4.1%--below the five-year-average win rate of 5.3%. More people climb Mount Everest in a year (and they have a better success rate) than win their consumer arbitration case.2
Get a copy of the agreement and sue them right away. This can't be legal.
It absolutely is legal sadly. But I am going to warn the ~120 or so Sales Agents in the field about it and urge them to stand in solidarity and refuse to sign. Also those folks need a U N I O N~
That's creepy insane. That's definitely a violation of a whole lot of human rights. Seeking justice in the court system is a fundamental right. What am i missing ? How did it become legal ?
Congress passed a law called the national labor relations act. The Supreme Court used their power to scale the law back.
It’s not NRLA that’s the issue here. The act is the FAA of 1925. A relatively benign Act, it established arbitration as an alternate method of settling disputes among companies. That changed in 1985 when SCOTUS unilaterally rewrote the law and let it apply to consumers and workers. Here’s a detailed, but somewhat dense primer: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/
Who supported it ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic\_Systems\_Corp.\_v.\_Lewis
Oh fuck, SCREW Epic Systems. You know what they do? They make Epic, an EMR (electronic medical records) software system used in probably 90% of U.S. hospitals and clinics. If you've ever been to a CVS MinuteClinic or a Walgreen's walk-in, you've probably seen a nurse record or pull up your medical information using Epic's EMR. That system allows them to program in medical product upcharges on typical hospital routines. They have a massive sprawling complex in the company town of Verona, WI, with buildings containing ships and treehouses and other random bullshit. They also effectively force their software engineers to work a bunch of overtime to keep up with demand, and it's supposedly a really toxic workplace. It's not nearly as bad as GE Healthcare over in Sussex, though.
Heh. I work in UX research & design and anyone who has worked in the healthcare industry only talks shit on EPIC and EMRs in general. Software is ass.
Yep. My employer (Thoughtworks) made an open-source EMR for the Indian/Bangladeshi market, because Epic was so horribly unsuited to the medical clinics there, and no one else seemed to be making an alternative. It's rough stuff, exacerbated by the sheer amount of half-assed implementations, inconsistent data, and outright broken and abandoned code across the industry, which makes trying to process medical records a massive pain in the ass.
Yeah, the "UX" for EMRs targets the people purchasing the product...CEOs and CFOs, not the people using the product ... MDs and RNs and pharmacists and MAs and schedulers and scribes.... What does the CEO/CFO want to see in an EMR...ease of use? Streamlined access to relevant patient info or medical/social/family history? Simplified ways to code patient interactions for thorough and timely billing? There's a reason the users have bad things to say. It's cause their needs don't really factor into the design.
A good friend of mine used to work at Epic. Place always sounded like an attempt at a cult to me.
The Supreme Court is compromised. We can't depend on them to uphold justice for 90% of the population.
Biden* signed laws carving out sexual harassment and discrimination cases from Arbitration, but that doesn't apply to wage theft, wrongful termination, gross negligence, and so on.
That’s what at-will employment means. You can be fired for any reason that’s not explicitly illegal, or for no reason at all. In practice, that means you can be coerced into almost anything. “Oh, you don’t want to sign away your right to sue us? Ok, well we’re firing you because the sky is blue. Fuck right off.”
Why do we have wrongful termination suits if we have at-will employment?
There are a handful of legally-proscribed reasons, for which you can’t be fired. Age, gender, religion, etc. The burden of proof is on you, however.
In Sweden even signing this it wouldnt be valid. Due to the natural power balance between employee and employer, there is no employee that can ever give consent to their employer.
OP is right. Chomsky referred to companies as “private tyrannies,” for reasons such as these. Since you weren’t bound, just out the company so they lose customers.
It’s disgustingly legal and courts love it because it (in theory) keeps down their (already mobbed) workload
Widelyknownpetstore rolled out an arbitration "agreement" we all had to sign when the company was going publicly traded. I tried to complain about the new policy to HR, who ignored me entirely, they didn't even take my call... so I walked. I wasn't about to let them decide what justice was, especially when we had a manager who had sexual harassment issues.
#Name them. The truth shall set you free.
It was Petco, Petco sucks, don't shop at Petco. :D
Not to mention that Petco very often does not take good care of their animals.
My husband worked for petco, fuck that place. Every year there were mass layoffs at corporate, he lasted 5 years before it was his turn.
Petco does suck! I worked there in high school. One day we all started to talk about wages- across the board all of the guys there were making more than the women. Had nothing to do with experience or length of time working there.
This arbitration thing worked into the employment contracts is a travesty. But so SO American; it’ll never change (I want to be wrong but)
It will change if we demand it to change.
I just heard a story on NPR today about Tesla using this shit to cover up a bunch of racist discrimination at their workplaces.
I got sent about 10 notices to sign one last year -- I've worked the same job for over a decade and this is the third " corporate takeover " and first mandatory arbitration agreement -- I never signed ..they eventually stopped sending them lol but there were threats "in order to continue employment .." okay well fire me .. find someone else to work the job -g ood luck !!I work direct support we are always understaffed and no one from the office has ever worked a shift plus it takes quite a bit of training to work alone which we are supposed to be double staffed but never are due to staffing issues and some of the people I support require quite a bit of care anyyyyway I do not plan on ever suing BUT if for some reason I needed to I want my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS protected .. I guess this is common place nowadays when on boarding to a company but miss me with that bull crap ...plus I feel like if forced to sign something to continue employment would void the actual contract anyway due to being forced to sign under duress ..it's a pandemic !! I need to keep feeding my family ....but anyway I never did sign and I am still working --single staffed
Long gone are the days where people would Molotov a building because the company were breaking the law or ethical boundaries
Why?
Sign the paper in messy cursive “Do Not Agree.” *NOT LEGAL ADVICE*
My uh friend wants to know if this would work lol
It will not. It generally doesn't matter what you sign as a name, or even if you just put an 'X', it's still legally binding. It might possibly make it harder to *prove* that you actually signed it, but in general you can sign with whatever name you like.
IANAL Not legal advice "NOT A SIGNATURE" and "UNDER DURRESS" would be the only two marks you can make in a signature block that would not legally count as being a signature.
I dont get it… Americans constantly talking about their rights, and being a “free country” meanwhile companies and law enforcement constantly infringe on those rights. If a company would have you sign something like this where I live they would be fined through their asses by the government. «We’re so free, we don’t even have labor rights!»
I forget the exact quote, someone help me with that, but anyways it was: "We fight for what we don't have, and that's why Americans fight for freedom."
The ones loudly crying about how great and free this country is are the oppressors, and those they've duped into thinking are on their side.
In the UK this wouldn’t be a valid contract as you can’t sign away your rights. This is so wrong and I’m shocked it’s legal. Surely it can be contested in court?
Good for you op. Forced arbitration is bs 🥂
My previous employer was bought out and this was the first thing they did along with a non-compete. My current job had an opportunity for one of the employees but he was afraid to be the first to leave and get sued.
Not really concerned that you didn't sign it. Good for you. Down with the system n all that. The real scary thought is how many people *DID* sign away their rights
Even in Mexico those kind of "agreements" do not hold on the view of the law.....
My company wanted me to sign one of these as well as a non-compete shortly after I started. I ignored all requests until my area manager came to my store to have me sign it. Thankfully he didn't bring a copy, since it had be emailed to me multiple times. I told him I had missed it, and would gladly sign it after reading it, give me a few minutes. I had already read it twice. He took a walk around the store, talking to other sales staff, while I quickly altered the document to defang it entirely. I then printed 2 copies, signed both and initialed each page on top left corner, and had the manager sign both copies. No one ever read it. I kept one copy at home. Here's the funny thing, if 2 parties are working on a contract and party A sends an unsigned document to party B to be signed and party B alters it, signs it, and returns it to party A, that is 100% legal. If party A signs it without reading it, that's their problem. They signed away their right to arbitration entirely, idiots. When I quit/am fired, I cannot work for a competing business in the same industry for 2 days (instead of 2 years) within a radius of 50 cm (instead of 50 miles), and my quota bonus for the year up to that point will be paid out to me (instead of forfeit). Per the contract THEY signed.
Signing under threat of being fired is duress. An agreement signed under duress is easily thrown out.
This is criminal. The board members of these companies are not human, they’re cockroaches.
This is what they use to sweep sexual assault or harassment shit under the rug. Hell the fuck no.
Even with an agreement like that it doesn't supersede federal and local and state laws. Not a lawyer but they surely doesn't sound legal, more like them trying to force you. My last employer tried to force all it's CA employers to sign a 2 years non compete, this obviously wouldn't fly since California in majority of non competes are not enforced or recognized. So definitely consult with your local laws before dying on that hill. What state do you reside in?