Washington can be a leader on protecting sexual harassment, assault survivors

For far too long, workers subjected to blatantly illegal and toxic behavior have been forced into a culture of silence, unable to speak about their experiences or to warn others about peril in the workplace.

Non-disclosure agreements, which were originally intended to protect proprietary information such as trade secrets, are now so prevalent that employees subjected to sexual harassment, racial and gender discrimination and retaliation are forced to stay silent about their treatment for fear of being sued by their employers simply for telling the truth.

Now, the state of Washington has the opportunity to join several other states across the nation that have allowed workers to speak their truth without fear. Legislation moving through both houses of the legislature would end this silencing epidemic by allowing survivors to disclose instances of illegal behavior, in an effort to improve organizational culture and to warn current and prospective co-workers.

Once these bills, sponsored by Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, and Rep. Liz Berry, D-Seattle, become law, Washington would join New Jersey and California as a national leader in protecting workers.

So-called “confidentiality provisions” come in many forms. Sometimes, workers sign away their right to speak upon employment, unaware that they will never be able to discuss their workplace experiences with anyone. Sometimes, they are prevented from collecting a settlement or receiving a letter of recommendation unless they agree to stay silent forever about the very wrongdoing that drove them from their workplace.

Regardless of the circumstances, this silencing epidemic affects more than one-third of all American workers.

Our personal stories are instructive. Two of us sued Fox News and its former chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment and retaliation. To receive some compensation for the destruction of our well-established careers, we were required never to disclose anything we witnessed, regardless of how illegal and toxic it might have been.

Since then, we have had to sit silently by as the network has repeatedly pledged that its current executives never participated in any workplace toxicity. We cannot legally disclose whether we know the network’s statements to be true or false.

One of us lost her severance package after refusing to stay silent about the NDA she was forced to sign after departing her job at Apple. Apple has threatened to sue her for breaking her confidentiality provision to disclose instances of harassment and retaliation she faced while working there, forcing her into further debt and driving her from an industry she loved.

One of us was warned by lawyers for Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey that she would be in legal peril for violating her NDA if she were to assist a young campaign volunteer who had allegedly been sexually assaulted by a co-worker. She was forced to remain silent while the governor enabled retaliation against her for privately raising concerns about unacceptable behavior she witnessed by men in his inner orbit.

Our stories are illustrative of the trauma survivors endure every single day as a result of these silencing mechanisms. Washington has the opportunity to become a national leader by banning this culture of silence and allowing workers to speak out about illegal workplace activity. Companies should embrace transparency that leads to better productivity and a happier workforce.

All of us should understand that further traumatizing survivors of harassment and discrimination by forcing them into perpetual silence is just another form of retaliation. Our laws should reflect our values and there is no higher value than ensuring that everyone is able to call out illegal and toxic behavior in order to create a more respectful and just society.

Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky are the co-founders of Lift Our Voices, a national nonprofit dedicated to eradicating silencing provisions such as forced arbitration and non-disclosure agreements for toxic workplace issues. Cher Scarlett is a workers’ rights activist and software engineer at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and the Hutch.