Microsoft hands #MeToo a major victory
Microsoft’s announcement that it will allow employees to sue the company for sexual harassment has handed the #MeToo campaign an important victory after months of revelations about predatory behavior and assault by powerful men in media, entertainment and technology, advocates said.
The software giant said this week it it scrapping employment agreements that require workers to settle harassment complaints in private and called itself the first Fortune 100 company to back a bill before Congress that would ban companies from forcing such disputes into closed-door arbitration.
“We concluded that if we were to advocate for legislation ending arbitration requirements for sexual harassment, we should not have a contractual requirement for our own employees that would obligate them to arbitrate sexual harassment claims,” Brad Smith, the president and chief legal officer, said in a statement. “For this reason, effective immediately, we are waiving the contractual requirement for arbitration of sexual harassment claims in our own arbitration agreements for the limited number of employees who have this requirement.”
More than half of American workers have signed away their right to sue their employer for sexual harassment, gender or racial discrimination, according to a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute.
Employee advocates say such contracts shield predators and perpetuate the problem. Some expressed hope Microsoft’s decision, while affecting only a small number of its employees, could push other firms to drop their secrecy rules.
“Microsoft just jumped way ahead,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, which opposes legal agreements that silence whistleblowers. “This will put pressure on other corporations to do just that.”
In his statement, Smith said Microsoft supported the bipartisan bill introduced this month that would outlaw mandatory arbitration in sexual harassment cases and void existing employment contracts that demand it. Such arrangements allow accusations to stay secret, and firms have a say in who decides the cases, advocates say.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the bill’s conservative sponsors, persuaded Microsoft to support the bill, Smith wrote.
The two happened to have a meeting scheduled for Dec. 6, the same day Graham unveiled the legislation on Capitol Hill with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a source close to Graham said. They were supposed to discuss cybersecurity and immigration, but, Smith wrote, Graham “followed those topics with a compelling appeal that we consider this new legislation.”
Graham asked Smith: Where does Microsoft stand on this? He soon got the answer. For Microsoft, the decision to update its company policy was more of a symbolic move than a cultural upheaval. The firm said a small fraction of its workforce — “hundreds of employees” out of 125,000 worldwide — were bound by similar contracts.