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An "agreement" made under duress is not actually an agreement, therefore not morally binding. A clause in your employment contract is only actually an agreement

An "agreement" made under duress is not actually an agreement, therefore not morally binding. A clause in your employment contract is only actually an agreement if: 1. Society defines having a job as an optional luxury. 2. The employer is willing to strike out that clause, and the candidate employee can reasonably know this. 3. Other employers are offering better terms. Were any of those true in this case?

mattmanser 10y ago
What employer is willing to strike "Must perform assigned duties"? Or any of the many other clauses which are essential to an employment contract? There are always things in contracts which can't be struck out. You can always ask to strike it out, and declare your intention to find future employees at their company. From their point of view, you'd be saying that when you left you'd potentially take millions of $s of other employees with you and disrupt their operations. Why would they employ you? Not poaching your employer's employees within a certain timeframe is a perfectly normal and reasonable clause. You've got confidential information on their employees, namely which ones are good, which work well with you, etc., things you'd normally spend a lot of time + money finding out. And they spent a lot of money advertising, vetting, hiring, training and integrating those employees.
- rwallace 10y ago
  > What employer is willing to strike "Must perform assigned duties"? Indeed, and many employees have found themselves assigned duties that were not at all what they expected, and damaging to their health or otherwise harmful, but hey, they "agreed" to perform assigned duties, right? Looks like my position isn't a popular one here. So be it but, if you live in a developed country, have you ever wondered why, for the last few decades, almost everyone has been getting poorer and more miserable every time the GDP goes up? Sometimes, astonishingly enough, beliefs do actually have real-world consequences.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > they "agreed" to perform assigned duties, right? They aren't slaves. They can quit any time. No employer can force you to do anything - but they don't have to pay you if you don't do the assigned duties. Sounds fair to me.
  - mattmanser 10y ago
    Those duties are usually listed. If they start adding odious duties, in the UK we do have laws against that, you can refuse and if dismissed can argue "constructive dismissal". So if your employer asks you to start cleaning loos with a toothbrush...
    - yrro 10y ago
      In the UK these days you have to pay substantial fees to access an employment tribunal. These fees may seem trivial to you and I, but a person on minimum wage who finds that they have been underpaid will have to work for an insane 58 hours in order to pay the fee for taking their employer to tribunal! If they want to claim unfair dismissal then they have to work for 179 hours!
WalterBright 10y ago
>this case The guy was a highly paid executive. I don't understand how he could have been under duress. (Is Elon Musk really hiring desperate people who have no options?) What if the employer hired a person under duress, like they were in desperate need of some particular skill. Does that mean they can decide not pay the person? I've had employers strike clauses that I didn't agree with. Contracts are hardly written in stone tablets. If contracts were non-negotiable and were employees' only option, everyone would be working for minimum wage.
- rwallace 10y ago
  > The guy was a highly paid executive. I don't understand how he could have been under duress. (Is Elon Musk really hiring desperate people who have no options?) That in combination with the claim that he asked other employees to come with him while they were his subordinates at Tesla, is the strongest argument the company has in this case, and maybe that combination has some merit. I'm arguing against the general claim that an "agreement" in an employment contract that the employee had no meaningful choice about signing, is morally binding. > What if the employer hired a person under duress, like they were in desperate need of some particular skill. Does that mean they can decide not pay the person? There is a classical thought experiment in ethics, on that very topic. Suppose you're stuck on a high window ledge with no way down, likely to lose your footing and fall in the next few minutes, and you see a man passing with a ladder. He offers to get you down for a million dollars. How binding is your agreement? Me, I figure since it was made under duress, you're entitled to renegotiate a more reasonable figure once on the ground. Some thinkers have given much stronger answers than that! What's your answer?
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    You didn't answer my question, but I'll answer yours. I'll offer him much less. If I fall, he gets nothing. It's not a realistic question anyway. If you were fired from your job tomorrow, are you really going to drop dead? I doubt it. Is the job you have the one and only job you could ever have? That somehow, when you were born, you were destined by fate to have only this job and there is nothing you can do about it? I don't buy that people have "no meaningful choice" in employment, not even close. I've heard all kinds of justifications for stealing from others, cheating on exams, etc. Even justifications by well paid office workers for stealing office supplies. I'm not buying it.

mattmanser 10y ago

What employer is willing to strike "Must perform assigned duties"? Or any of the many other clauses which are essential to an employment contract? There are always things in contracts which can't be struck out. You can always ask to strike it out, and declare your intention to find future employees at their company. From their point of view, you'd be saying that when you left you'd potentially take millions of $s of other employees with you and disrupt their operations. Why would they employ you? Not poaching your employer's employees within a certain timeframe is a perfectly normal and reasonable clause. You've got confidential information on their employees, namely which ones are good, which work well with you, etc., things you'd normally spend a lot of time + money finding out. And they spent a lot of money advertising, vetting, hiring, training and integrating those employees.

rwallace 10y ago
> What employer is willing to strike "Must perform assigned duties"? Indeed, and many employees have found themselves assigned duties that were not at all what they expected, and damaging to their health or otherwise harmful, but hey, they "agreed" to perform assigned duties, right? Looks like my position isn't a popular one here. So be it but, if you live in a developed country, have you ever wondered why, for the last few decades, almost everyone has been getting poorer and more miserable every time the GDP goes up? Sometimes, astonishingly enough, beliefs do actually have real-world consequences.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > they "agreed" to perform assigned duties, right? They aren't slaves. They can quit any time. No employer can force you to do anything - but they don't have to pay you if you don't do the assigned duties. Sounds fair to me.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  Those duties are usually listed. If they start adding odious duties, in the UK we do have laws against that, you can refuse and if dismissed can argue "constructive dismissal". So if your employer asks you to start cleaning loos with a toothbrush...
  - yrro 10y ago
    In the UK these days you have to pay substantial fees to access an employment tribunal. These fees may seem trivial to you and I, but a person on minimum wage who finds that they have been underpaid will have to work for an insane 58 hours in order to pay the fee for taking their employer to tribunal! If they want to claim unfair dismissal then they have to work for 179 hours!

WalterBright 10y ago

>this case The guy was a highly paid executive. I don't understand how he could have been under duress. (Is Elon Musk really hiring desperate people who have no options?) What if the employer hired a person under duress, like they were in desperate need of some particular skill. Does that mean they can decide not pay the person? I've had employers strike clauses that I didn't agree with. Contracts are hardly written in stone tablets. If contracts were non-negotiable and were employees' only option, everyone would be working for minimum wage.

rwallace 10y ago
> The guy was a highly paid executive. I don't understand how he could have been under duress. (Is Elon Musk really hiring desperate people who have no options?) That in combination with the claim that he asked other employees to come with him while they were his subordinates at Tesla, is the strongest argument the company has in this case, and maybe that combination has some merit. I'm arguing against the general claim that an "agreement" in an employment contract that the employee had no meaningful choice about signing, is morally binding. > What if the employer hired a person under duress, like they were in desperate need of some particular skill. Does that mean they can decide not pay the person? There is a classical thought experiment in ethics, on that very topic. Suppose you're stuck on a high window ledge with no way down, likely to lose your footing and fall in the next few minutes, and you see a man passing with a ladder. He offers to get you down for a million dollars. How binding is your agreement? Me, I figure since it was made under duress, you're entitled to renegotiate a more reasonable figure once on the ground. Some thinkers have given much stronger answers than that! What's your answer?
- WalterBright 10y ago
  You didn't answer my question, but I'll answer yours. I'll offer him much less. If I fall, he gets nothing. It's not a realistic question anyway. If you were fired from your job tomorrow, are you really going to drop dead? I doubt it. Is the job you have the one and only job you could ever have? That somehow, when you were born, you were destined by fate to have only this job and there is nothing you can do about it? I don't buy that people have "no meaningful choice" in employment, not even close. I've heard all kinds of justifications for stealing from others, cheating on exams, etc. Even justifications by well paid office workers for stealing office supplies. I'm not buying it.