TORONTO (CANADA)
The Toronto Star
November 7, 2017
By Kelly Nolan
Instead of supporting lawyers who work to silence victims, workplaces should try evolving the culture from a patriarchal system of entitlement to one where women never have to be afraid.
As leader after leader falls from grace in the current sweep of sexual harassment and assault accusations, CEOs, chairs of the boards, human resources executives and corporate legal counsel are rushing into emergency meetings to assess their risk and build crisis communications strategies to “manage” the potential fallout.
What’s on the meeting agenda? Reviews of past nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), risk assessments on unresolved complaints from employees and disgruntled employees who have fled the company.
“What is our exposure on this?”
“How do we manage what we have hidden in our corporate closet?”
What should be on the agenda? How to create equity frameworks to ensure our employees are safe and free from harassment and the abuse of power. How to ensure transparency so the women on their team and their future recruits know their well-being trumps the “Trumps” in the office.
NDAs are the devil’s work. They silence victims, protect the employer from taking responsibility and secure a perfect environment for predators — and have done so for years. (Fox News … say no more.)
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.