Dan Rosenthal wrote:
And yet, a contract is a pledge of sorts, but its
enforceability is
supported by law. However, to gain that enforceability, the contract
must be sufficiently certain. Given that the key focus of that non-
disparagement agreement is "disparagement", it would seem critical
that disparagement be defined. And yet, it's not. It's suitably vague.
That's hurting the value of what a pledge is: a promise that something
will (or will not) happen. If that act or omission is not actually
defined (such as in this case, with disparagement being the act), then
you simply cannot make that kind of promise. On top of that, for a
promise like this to be worthwhile, it must be equitably applied to
members of the group (i.e. all members of the board, or all members of
the staff, or all of both). Picking and choosing who falls underneath
the pledge/contract diminishes its value by allowing loopholes. For
instance, suppose all the staff and board signed this agreement, and
one member (board or staff, doesn't matter) leaves disgruntled. Under
the text of that agreement, that member does not have any assurances
that an independent contractor for the foundation won't slam them
(since said people wouldn't be covered under the agreement). Given
this discrepancy, it's feasible to see a situation where this
agreement as written works far more to the benefit of the foundation
than to the benefit of an employee/trustee who leaves. And that's not
a good thing.
-Dan
Nod.
Regarding (who gets) benefits of the agreement, it seems frequent that
the non-disparagement agreements are typically signed at the moment when
an employee quits an organization (be it because he resigns or is fired).
The future-ex-employee can choose to sign the agreement or not.
Agreement to sign may come with a financial compensation for the employee.
Ant
On Apr 14, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Florence Devouard wrote:
Last, you mention adulthood. Would not it be more
"adult" precisely
to
pledge to respect others and their activity, to pledge to always
try to
have our mission in mind, to follow common values shared by the
group;
to respect a code of conduct and promise to inform in conflict of
interests you might be submitted to;
as opposed to be maintained under a legal threat ?
In a civilized society, the
legal system is where we go to resolve our
disputes when we find we *couldn't* work them out amicably in person
like we would prefer to.
Contracts are a formal way to make agreements -- pledges -- written
down, so that *if* a dispute occurs in the future, we can all sit down
and point at the agreement, reason about it, and if it ends up needing
to be decided with assistance from the law, the judge will have a
chance
of figuring out what it is the parties agreed to.
Being an adult is about responsibility, and that means planning for
contingencies.
That's why we put our money in banks instead of under the mattress,
why
we get health insurance instead of hiding from the doctor, and why we
write down contracts instead of making all agreements under the table.
- -- brion
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla -
http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iEYEARECAAYFAkgDl60ACgkQwRnhpk1wk47IBgCgmrqAnAddwcXsUWvEYKp6Ph6k
WckAn3+vCrlcnQJXHvXFevgOpBSJCTuV
=R3L+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l