I’m writing this post in January of 2017 but it will not be scheduled to appear on the blog until October.
2017 will be the year all of us start having nagging questions about “the fine print” in all of those agreements we have blindly signed over the years. The October 2016 issue of Time magazine had quite a few articles which talked about various aspects of it and the testimony before Congress which was to occur. There are several main abuses being focused on:
- binding arbitration
- non-disclosure agreements
- gag orders
These two issues are of profound significance to anyone involved in the business of professional writing. Most writers get so starry eyed when _finally_ being offered a writing contract they sign anything put in front of them without reading a word. Little do they know they signed away pretty much every right they ever had, including the right to sue for breach of contract.
Use a magnifying glass to read that illegibly small print and you will see you agreed to “binding arbitration” using an arbitrator chosen by them. The outcome is basically predetermined and you lose.
Binding Arbitration has been used by corporations for many years as a way to commit crimes against a person while avoiding any hint of prison time. Some accounts claim Wells Fargo used it to avoid prison time for their CEO and board of directors while blatantly committing the Federal crime of account fraud, victimizing their customers for profit. The lawyers for most corporations claim you cannot report the crime as all disputes must go through binding arbitration.
Almost every company you ever work for will have a “standard non-disclosure agreement” for you to sign. The original intent of a non-disclosure agreement was to stop trade secrets from escaping. You don’t want an employee quitting the day after your firm the day after it discovers the formula for a drug which cures X only to have them walk the formula over to a competitor. These trade secrets encompass everything from fast food seasonings to software algorithms. Remember the Colonel’s secret recipe? How about the “special sauce” used with your 2 all beef patties, lettuce, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
Of course, there are many downsides to non-disclosure agreements. The never ending tale of how Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine is one result. It also leads to far more people dying horribly than ever should have from baby powder.
Today’s lawyers tend to bury what is known as a “gag order” within the “standard non-disclosure.” A token few have the decency to make the gag order its own document, but you can bet your last dollar it doesn’t say “Gag Order” in plain English at the top of the document. Some go so far as to view the combination of the non-disclosure as complete removal of your freedom of speech. Like a communist country only allows you to praise the party, you are only allowed to praise the party holding these documents. You are barred from reporting all high crimes and misdemeanors.
Fine print has kept an unbelievably large number of crimes from ever being prosecuted and a large number of CEOs looking like fine upstanding citizens while they engage in thuggery of the worst sort. For a long time it was a Federal crime to replace a U.S. Citizen with a visa worker. This did not stop Southern California Edison and a great many other companies. They invoked the fine print to keep it all quite. Even “wholesome” companies like Disney have engaged in this crime.
Before you sign anything, find a lawyer you trust and have them remove the fine print. Okay, I know what is wrong with that sentence. Trust and lawyer are not two terms typically used together.
