The talk with Angela Cornell about the google strike today was an intriguing journey into the world of the abused, neglected and contractually assaulted. Being from the ILR school, I knew a lot of the background to Cornell’s lecture and what my professors likely would have argued concerning her thoughts. While I went into the talk thinking that the entire theme would be about an intangible evil that happened only to others, I was soundly mistaken. One of the topics of thought Angela Cornell posed to us was that when we get jobs and sign contracts, we should make sure we do not have any contractually binding elements in them that limit our rights in the unfortunate event legal action is necessary.
When hearing this, I immediately began thinking of my future. I want to go into law, but I also have a few other possible options, including some other office jobs and think tanks. It is always important for workers to protect themselves from harassment, even men, who are also susceptible to this kind of unwanted advances under rare circumstances. Therefore, I wanted to share this advice with other future employees in the labor market. As a child, I remember hearing stories of workplace misconduct that my parents either experienced in their jobs or that they saw other colleagues go through. While I had forgotten most stories, considering I heard them a decade ago, I now remember a lot, from the simple suggestive comment to the explicit exchange of sexual favors for promotions. Now, many may ask, if this is a prevalent mindset and an exposed concept to prospective employees at a company, why don’t they take a stand when initially signing their contracts. Angela Cornell expressed the reason for this quite well in the fact that new workers initially believe that this type of discrimination won’t befall them, as the company selected them out of many other applicants because the managers liked and valued them. While this may very well be the case, I urge every new worker to review their contracts and protect themselves from the corporate paperwork that limits their rights in our free world.
This post is quite right to point out that a majority of workplace suits might not take place because of contract language. While sex discrimination is illegal, and protected under the Civil Rights Act, we are naive to believe that each workplace culture insists and maintain the same values. This is the point that the original post describes, those stories of different workplace cultures that might even motivate a hostile workplace environment. This post also brings up the realistic need to, as a worker, protect oneself from abuse. There are no exceptions to the rule, that it could, as the post points out, befall them.