Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky on how they’re tackling age discrimination at work.
For many of us, December is a month of reflection and celebration. This December is especially meaningful for us at Lift Our Voices as we commemorate the first anniversary of the passage of the Speak Out Act, signed into law on December 7, 2022, and look back at the work it took to get there. This bipartisan legislation, which had incredible support from leaders across both sides of the aisle, provides survivors of sexual assault and harassment the ability to speak their truth.
The Speak Out Act affects millions of Americans, whether you work in an office, restaurant, hospital, manufacturing plant, or on a construction site. It was through our own experiences with harassment and retaliation at Fox News, and then hearing from countless other survivors, that we discovered that it has become all too common for employers to require workers to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), which can cover up toxic behavior and misconduct. That’s why we created our non-profit, Lift Our Voices, to end the silencing mechanisms that contribute to toxic workplace behavior.
The Speak Out Act goes a long way toward preventing companies from covering up sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace, and adds to the worker protections of another law we helped to pass in 2022, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Harassment Act, which bans the use of forced arbitration for workplace sexual misconduct. More than 60 million workers in the U.S. are subject to forced arbitration clauses, which prevent survivors from pursuing claims in open court. Instead, survivors are forced into the secret chamber of arbitration, which overwhelmingly benefits companies at the expense of survivors. There is no appeals process.
What we learned during this battle for workers’ rights is that there are many forms of workplace toxicity. One of the most pervasive forms of discrimination in the workplace is bias against older workers, those 40 years of age or older. An AARP survey found that 9 in 10 older workers said age discrimination was common and 1 in 6 said they weren’t hired for a job due to their age.
Like sexual assault, ageism has been able to persist in professional environments in part because of these stifling contracts. Most workers sign NDAs or forced arbitration agreements on their very first day of work, without reading the fine print. NDAs were initially set up to keep company information, such as trade secrets, confidential. But in recent decades, they have been increasingly used to keep people from speaking out about any type of toxic behavior in the workplace. For years, organizations have used NDAs to hide all sorts of discrimination and harassment preventing victims from talking about the misconduct publicly.
Our work is far from done. We recently embarked on expanding the ban on forced arbitration to include age discrimination, which is critical at this time when more older adults are likely to be working, including retirees returning to work. That’s why we worked with elected officials on both sides of the aisle to introduce the Protecting Older Americans Act, which will protect survivors of age discrimination from having their stories swept under the rug in the secret arbitration process.
At Lift Our Voices, we’re looking forward to 2024 as we work towards eliminating toxic behavior and making workplaces safer and more equitable for everyone. You can help, too! The LOV website has excellent resources for anyone experiencing or witnessing misconduct in the workplace, as well as information about your state’s laws. Continue to check in with us as we grow our online community. Most importantly, remember that knowledge is power, so please share these new rights with friends and family. It will go a long way toward giving everyone the power to speak their truth, without fear.
