U.S. Bans Firms From Gagging Laid-Off Workers

If your company lays you off, your employer might offer you severance pay — but only if you agree to adhere to a number of restrictions. Staying quiet is often one of them, Jeanne Sahadi reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week put employers on notice that they can no longer silence laid-off employees in two very specific ways that the board says violates employees’ rights.

But the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week put employers on notice that they can no longer silence laid-off employees in two very specific ways that the board says violates employees’ rights under sections 7 and 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers can no longer include a broadly written confidentiality clause that requires you to keep mum about the terms of your severance agreement.

And they can no longer include a broadly written non-disparagement clause that prohibits you from discussing the terms and conditions of your employment with third parties.

“A severance agreement is unlawful if it precludes an employee from assisting coworkers with workplace issues concerning their employer, and from communicating with others, including a union, and the Board, about his employment,” the board wrote in its decision Tuesday.

The ruling is a reversal of what the Trump-era NLRB members had decided in a previous case were lawful restrictions on employees as a condition of receiving severance.

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