Is It OK to Badmouth Your Former Boss? Talk to a Lawyer First
New rules on non-disparagement agreements may not be as simple as some online pundits have suggested
Photographer: diego_cervo/iStockphoto/Getty Images
It isn’t often that musings from the National Labor Relations Board go viral, but that’s exactly what happened last week when its general counsel released guidance suggesting that people who signed “overly broad” non-disparagement agreements don’t actually need to abide by them.
The idea that former workers with a chip on their shoulder could let loose on their former boss or employer captured the imagination of Twitter users, some of whom publicly replied to articles about the memo with intimate details of how they were wronged by vindictive managers or taken advantage of by heartless companies.