Work: It is where we spend much of our time and lots of our energy and focus. It is how we support ourselves and our families. Whether we work in an office, in retail, at a restaurant or from home, we should all feel safe and respected.

But the sad reality for millions of New Yorkers is that our workplaces are rife with toxicity. Workers face discrimination, sexual harassment, misogyny and other abuse that affect productivity and force too many of us to choose between earning a paycheck and working every day with a knot in our stomach.

Worse still, too many of us cannot discuss this with anyone — co-workers, friends or family members. We cannot even tell a prospective employer the real reason why we were forced to leave a previous job.

This mandated silence is the result of the non-disclosure agreements thrust upon countless New Yorkers. All too often, these workers must remain quiet as their employers weave the most fantastical tales about them, knowing full well that they cannot respond because those same organizations have silenced them with an NDA. Too often, this is how employers, from politicians to corporate executives, hide their dirty laundry and protect the predators in their midst at the expense of survivors.

Today, NDAs barring workers from discussing workplace toxicity are perfectly legal in New York employment contracts, buried in onboarding paperwork or presented as a condition of promotion or severance. Many New Yorkers are not aware, until it’s too late, that they are banned from telling almost anyone that they have faced harassment, discrimination or even assault. The psychological toll of this enforced silence is brutal.

Several years ago, in an attempt to address the issue, New York State adopted a law banning NDAs in settlement agreements “unless the condition of confidentiality is the complainant’s preference.” While the intent of this legislation was laudable, its shortcomings are glaring. In exchange for a settlement, employees will always be pressured to “prefer” a non-disclosure agreement; it is entirely superficial and meaningless in practice.

A survivor does not need an NDA in order to remain silent about workplace trauma — she can simply choose not to speak about it. But for millions of others, the ability to warn co-workers about danger or band together to hold a predator accountable is key to creating a safer workplace. Rather than mandating that survivors keep their mouths shut, employers might instead consider rooting out toxic behavior to protect their own workers.

We know this firsthand. After we both sued Fox News and its former Chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment and retaliation, we were told any monetary settlement was contingent upon our signing away our right to discuss what happened to us with anyone. We must stand by silently while movies and articles purport to tell our stories, even though we cannot confirm if they are accurate. What is worse, our NDAs prevent us from warning others about predators and their enablers who may still work at the network.

One of us served as a senior adviser on New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s first campaign. After she complained to him about workplace toxicity, his attorneys reminded her that an NDA buried in her contract forbade her from ever disclosing anything she had witnessed there. When a campaign volunteer later accused Murphy’s aide of sexual assault, Murphy’s attorneys again insisted that the NDA precluded her from divulging “any knowledge or information of any type, whatsoever” that she gleaned on the campaign — even if it meant that knowledge could assist in counseling a woman who credibly claimed to have been sexually violated.

The only reason this story can now be told is because enormous public, legal and legislative pressure led the governor to reluctantly and belatedly release women from these NDAs.

NDAs were created to protect proprietary information, such as trade secrets. They should not exist to protect predators and their enablers at the expense of survivors. But time and again, they have been misused to cover up unethical and even illegal behavior. Based on our long-time advocacy, Congress just banned forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault — but much work remains to end the epidemic of silence that protects predators at the expense of survivors.

Gov. Hochul and state legislators have the opportunity to join other states, including New Jersey and California, in banning NDAs for all toxic workplace issues. As we saw over the course of a tumultuous year for our state, the #MeToo movement is not going away. It is not enough to say you want to hold predators accountable. You must give survivors their voices back to do just that.

Carlson and Roginsky are the co-founders of Lift Our Voices, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating silencing provisions including forced arbitration and NDAs for toxic workplace issues.

BY GRETCHEN CARLSON AND JULIE ROGINSKY

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - MAR 02, 2022