It’s not really that tricky. When a bunch of women level credible accusations of sexual harassment against a fellow employee you take them at their word. Especially when those accusations form a pattern dating back decades.
I really don’t understand why so many people are rushing to defend the contract that protected Bill O’Reilly here.
You mean like where Bill O’Reily is employed and the story we are discussing takes place? 'Cause, yeah: that makes you sound totally froot loops.
I was merely pointing out that systems in which employees have a legal protection against at-will termination are imaginable and, indeed, realizable.
Couple that with a stipulation that workers need to take their complaints to arbitration (instead of court) and you’ve got a deal!
This story has nothing to do with “at-will termination.” At-will termination means you can be fired for any reason. Firing someone for sexual harassment clearly falls under “just cause.”
Yeah - if you can prove it.
The employer had more than adequate evidence of the O’Reilly’s wrongdoing. Heck, they paid one of his accusers tens of millions of dollars to stay silent. That alone demonstrates that they believed the accusations were credible.
Again, THIS STORY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AT-WILL TERMINATION.
The discussion begun with mysterr claiming that all employees should be legally entitled to protection from termination, unless their wrongdoing can be sufficiently proven in court - which you explicitly objected to.
I consider that standard entirely reasonable, but of course it makes no sense in a system where termination can happen at any moment for any reason anyway, irrespective of any accusations or proof. So the at-will termination issue is quite relevant.
In the O’Reilly case specifically, I agree that the protection afforded to him (as it appears to be formulated) goes too far in that the entire court proceedings would have to be brought to a successful conclusion before his groping hands could be removed from the workplace.
I explicitly objected to the idea that every employee should have the same protections that O’Reilly enjoyed in his contract, namely that no employee could be fired unless the allegations against them are first proven in court.
You yourself even conceded this point when you wrote
So stop trying to make this story about at-will termination. It’s not.
Companies should be required to report how many “molester clause” contracts they have to investors. They are a huge liability.
Let me be very clear that I am not defending Bill O’Reilly, and I do take his accusers at their word and believe them. I believe this is, in general, the correct and appropriate approach.
I simply don’t think it follows that the terms of the contract were “wrong” in a fundamental sense, and I think that those kinds of protection, or something similar enough to them, would be a good idea for everyone to have.
Sociopathic corporate person supports sociopathic keyman human person (support not available to peons, who can be fired at-will).
I have had the good fortune to work in manufacturing all my life. Working from the shop floor to management positions. I have found over my career, that if you treat people with dignity and respect, these sorts of issues don’t pop up. In my 30 years of being in a supervisory position, I have never been accused of harassment of any sort. People work for me because they know I value them and their ideas. Their work output is always high and they are rewarded with recognition for it. Promotions are based on merit and opportunity, not seniority or buddy, buddy systems. Turnover is extremely low and morale is good.
My experience may be the rare one, but people treating others with dignity and respect has nothing to do taking drugs and stealing stuff. My folks are paid well, treated right and they can look themselves in the mirror every day and feel good about themselves.
Perhaps I am naive when if comes to “office politics, allegations of impropriety, etc.”, but I would still maintain that treating others respectfully would prevent charges of sexual harassment.
But you are defending the contract that made it virtually impossible to fire him even after multiple credible accusations of sexual harassment.
Yes, that’s true. And yes, it does feel squicky, but i still agree with it.
This needs a reality check: the vast majority of the times people are fired it is because of things that are not criminal and not even worthy of civil suits. Being late, acting inappropriately, not getting their work done, violating company policies. This clause outright absurd.
Take them to court for what? What if he’s just late every day? What court will hear the case? You’re compartmentalizing what you know to be true about everyday reality in order to defend an absurd position. And if an employee sued for wrongful termination the standard of proof would be balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt.
I concede that my original argument is incorrect in that I put the legal proceedings before the firing. But the way a standard European model of employment and termination works is like this:
An employee is failing his or her legitimate duties in some way - repeatedly coming late to work, not performing some task he or she is obligated to perform, masturbating in the mayonnaise… what have you.
As an employer becoming aware of this behavior, you gather the evidence (CCTV footage, testimonies, punch-card records …) and then you fire the offending worker for misconduct. The worker, however, has the right to challenge the termination in court - and this generally, if he or she does so within a certain period from the firing, nullifies the termination until the court decides on the matter. And the burden of proof re the presence and severity of the misconduct lies with the employer: The employer has to present sufficient evidence to justify the termination - not beyond all reasonable doubt, but the default position still being that the termination was wrongful. It’ slightly tilted in favor of the employee, in order to protect what is perceived to be the weaker party in labor disputes. You can’t come in there and just say “He/she was a bad worker so I fired them.” You have to have something in your hands.
Right, but this clause concerns termination due to unproven allegations of criminal behavior, not necessarily related to one’s job. Being late or absent from work, which directly relate to one’s employment, are unrelated and can be dealt with through enforcement of standard written company policies.
Again, this is all theoretical for 99.99% of US employees, who have no contract protections and are employed on an at-will basis. My point was that it would be nice if US employees had some such protections against termination for mere allegations of criminal behavior.
What the actual fuck. You are claiming that an employee who creates a toxic work environment by sexually harassing their coworkers is something an employer should be LESS concerned about than an employee who shows up late once in a while?
Again, Fox News paid one of Bill’s accusers tens of millions of dollars to stay silent. That’s not something you do when you think accusations are not credible. Bill’s behavior created serious problems not only fir his coworkers but also for the bottom line of his employer.
From the linked article, I can’t find anything to support your claim that this was about specifically criminal allegations. The document linked from the article detailing the testimony doesn’t suggest this either. In fact, those cases O’Reilly was settling to stay under this clause were civil, not criminal cases (you can’t settle out of a criminal case by paying the victim), so this is obviously not about crimes, or at least not just about crimes.
The article says that they were targeted at sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is often not criminal. Sexual harassment might include boasting about your sexual prowess in the lunch room, or making an inappropriate jokes, or propositioning co-workers in a way that is unwelcome in the workplace but that doesn’t come anywhere close to criminal harassment. Even some of the really egregious behaviour we’ve heard about in recent weeks from various people might not have been criminal. If someone invites you to their hotel room and then masturbates into a potted plant in front of you, that’s clearly sexual harassment if they are the producer of a movie you are in, but the behaviour itself wouldn’t be criminal in my jurisdiction and I doubt it would be criminal in many.
The burden of proof from criminal court is inappropriate everywhere except in criminal court. Had O’Reilly lost a civil lawsuit for sexual harassment they could have fired him for it, and that would have been a different standard of proof.
