Microsoft removes clause forcing workers to arbitrate sexual harassment cases

Microsoft is getting rid of a clause in some worker contracts that requires sexual harassment claims to be settled by arbitration, part of the tech giant’s efforts to remove secrecy and barriers to people coming forward to report abuse.

The change was announced in a Tuesday blog post by Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith, who also said Microsoft is endorsing a bipartisan bill by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) that addresses workplace sexual harassment.

Smith said the bill would “ensure that every person facing sexual harassment in the workplace can make their case in a public court, rather than solely behind closed doors in private arbitration.”

Smith said that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the first Fortune 100 company to endorse the bipartisan legislation “that will ensure that people’s concerns about sexual harassment can always be heard.”

“As many rightly have said, the #MeToo movement has created a national reckoning. As we’ve talked with and listened to our own employees at Microsoft, we’ve realized that it also needs to be more than this. It needs national reflection,” Smith said.

In a meeting with Sen. Graham in Washington, D.C., Smith said that Graham pointed out that as many as 60 million workers in the U.S. have no legal ability to bring a sexual harassment claim in court because they work under employment contracts that require complaints to be handled by private arbitration.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/12/19/microsoft-sexual-harassment-arbitration-brad-smith.html?ana=e_tf&s=newsletter&ed=2017-12-19&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1513718209&j=79367661