You voted blue and they screwed you.
That's what happened, if you're a worker, and I mean any worker, labor is winning.
>> Well apparently labor is definitely not winning over at Jimmy Dore's YouTube
channel.
In fact, journalist Walker Bragman has confirmed as much through
his recent reporting about some of the contractual agreements
Jimmy Dore has his employees signed into.
Now Bragman got his hands on on an independent contractors agreement that
Jimmy's production company used in the summer of 2020.
And it contains some pretty harsh anti-worker provisions.
First, the agreement from his company for DP includes clauses that
are very protective of the company and Dore himself.
The document contains a thorough nine-part,
three-page-long confidentiality section, effectively prohibiting
contractors from discussing anything they learned about Dore, his wife,
or their collaborators on the job including details about their business,
personal lives, finances, investments, and more.
Now look, NDAs, it really depends on what the NDAs terms include, right?
It's actually not that uncommon for
employers to implement NDAs in the context of their workplace.
But the damages that are noted in this NDA agreement is telling
to see say the least, okay?
This is where it gets very egregious, breaches and
even threatened breaches constitute immediate and
irreparable harm entitling Dore's company to equitable nonmonetary relief,
meaning contractors could be ordered to refrain from the activity.
The agreement further stipulates that breaches entitled Dore's company to
liquidated damages, which are agreed upon damages for failing to meet a specific
contractual obligation, in the amount of just $10,000 per breach.
>> Per breach.
It's pretty significant.
And that is not usual.
>> Yes. >> [LAUGH] In these NDAs.
So here's a couple of circumstances where NDAs are used in our fairly standard
practice, okay?
So, for example, you're doing contract with a third party, they're gonna have
some proprietary information about your company, and you don't want them telling
other companies that they contract with, cuz that's not fair to you, right?
And so you do an NDA.
Somebody might be leaving the company, they're getting a severance and so
you doing NDA.
These are normal, okay?
So, this is as onerous as an NDAs I have ever seen.
And in fact, if you said to another company, I'm gonna do $10,000 per
breach on an NDA, when it has nothing to do with workplace issues,
it's just about not revealing our information which is very serious, right?
They would say $10,000 per breach, no way, no way.
That's so harsh that a savvy person who has leverage and
power would tell you to f off, okay?
But he's using it against employees that have no leverage.
>> Yes, that's exactly right.
So as Walker Bragman reports in his piece,
there are experts on NDAs who are like, no, this is definitely unusual.
It is not standard practice.
These provisions are the hallmark of a very pro-employer employment contract,
Alan Hyde, a distinguished professor at Rutgers Law School,
told Important Context.
That's the publication that Walker Bragman published this in.
Hyde noted that the provisions were of dubious enforceability,
particularly the liquidated damages clause due to its high dollar figure.
Now, Philip Harvey, who is a law and economics professor at Rutgers Law school
agreed that Dore's contract was heavily tilted in favor of himself,
calling it very employer friendly.
The other thing is the arbitration.
That stood out to me even more, right?
Because arbitration can really work against the employee who
has a grievance with the employer.
So arbitration is common in many work contracts and
it is sometimes preferred by some union workplaces.
But understand that it does put the employee at a disadvantage,
because it means that they don't have a jury hear their case, okay?
And there's some secrecy to the arbitration process as well.
Whereas when someone is being sued through a jury system, the accusations are more
public, and people can learn about what the employer is being accused of.
>> And in the civil system as opposed to the arbitration system,
the employee wins a much higher percentage of the time.
>> Right. >> So the companies
are not unaware of that, they're choosing to put you in arbitration,
because it costs less, they win a higher percentage of the time.
And maybe the most important part is that if you lose arbitration,
which employees do, I think about 80% of the time,
then you have to pay the lawyer's cost of the employer and
the entire arbitration proceedings in which case you're totally screwed.
That could wipe you out completely,
especially if you're an average employee who's got that kind of money, right?
>> Right. >> So it doesn't get any more onerous than
this contract.
You're basically telling an employee, you do anything I don't like, and
I'm gonna crush you.
>> That's exactly right.
And he himself has been on the record to say
that NDAs are a very right wingy thing, okay?
>> Oops.
>> But this is par for the course for Jimmy Dore, right?
He has this public persona, where he purports to care so much about labor, so
much about workers.
But the way you treat your own workers and the way you treat producers, for
instance, says a lot about what you genuinely feel about labor, right?
>> Yeah >> Practice what you preach and
he typically doesn't do that.
Now Jordan Chariton had posted about this on Twitter, this story saying,
not surprised that pro-worker free speech warrior Jimmy Dore traps his workers
in a financially crippling gag order.
Or that the guy dismisses and minimizes COVID disabling millions of workers,
and attacks teachers unions, treats women like crap.
I have personal experience with that.
Well, Jimmy responded with that or to that, with this.
A basic nondisclosure agreements-standard for
every job in media are financially crippling gag orders.
Maybe the guy who lost his job cuz he used his status as a reporter to rope women
into pervy threesomes should probably sit this one out and
let others grasp at straws.
I think it's rich for Jimmy Dore to call anyone out over their treatment of women,
considering he loved to sexually harass people [LAUGH] including me, and
then bragged about it publicly.
But wait a minute. >> Go on.
>> I just realized something.
We're gonna get to Jordan's- >> Yeah.
>> Response in a second.
But, wait I thought that bringing up sexual harassment from the past was
blackmail.
>> Is he blackmailing Jordan Chariton?
>> That's what it looks like.
>> Looks like blackmail.
>> Hey Kirk, let's get on the job, okay?
Make sure that Jimmy apologizes to Jordan Chariton,
otherwise it's kind of looks like blackmail to me, okay?
Look, I got no interest in any of the parties here.
I'm just calling it like I see it.
But let's hear Chariton's response.
>> I've worked in both corporate and independent media for
over 10 years under several NDA's.
I've never been sent an NDA as financially or verbally prohibitive as yours.
And number 2, interesting deflection on pervy threesomes since you publicly-and
privately-defended me, thanks for that.
And he did defend Jordan Chariton on multiple occasions.
>> That's because Jimmy Dore doesn't care about sexual harassment,
he only cares to weaponize it.
>> Yeah.
>> And so if it's to his disadvantage, he's like, it's no big deal,
I was just humiliating people in front of everyone, right?
When it suits his purposes, like sexual harassment, okay?
Kind of get on it brother, get on, we got blackmail, anyways [LAUGH] okay.
Back to the NDAs.
If you know the story, Jordan Chariton also worked here.
Notice he said no place I've ever worked has had any kind of onerous NDA like this.
And so why is Jimmy doing this?
Well, why did he write the most stringent NDA I've ever seen, right?
>> Because he treats his workers like crap.
That's why.
>> Bingo, and he doesn't want them talking about it.
Okay, so it's not like so we spend a good amount
of money on infrastructure here, right?
So there are things that are this private information of the company that
we wouldn't want people taking with them when they leave.
That is a very legitimate reason for an NDA.
Shut up about what we did internally, not as legitimate, okay?
>> Right.
>> And so, in his case, look everybody knows,
like I would see him do it to his wife.
I gotta be honest.
Like he would yell during the breaks.
You should laugh at my jokes.
If you don't laugh at my jokes, no one will.
Well, I got news for you.
No one did, right?
And it was super awkward at the time.
But that was his wife and I thought, hey look man, that's between them.
As you guys might have heard, later I found out after he left, but
it was part of what led to the split too, right?
I heard about what happened to Anna later, right?
But I had begun to hear how much he was yelling at producers, and
other folks that worked here, and that some people wouldn't work with him,
because he flies off the handle.
I mean, imagine yelling at someone who's helping you trying to do a show, right?
>> Right. >> And-
>> There is no show without
producers, okay?
You don't see them on camera, but there is no show without producers.
There is no show without the graphics artist.
There is no show without the editors.
It takes a village to put a show together.
But he felt like they were his like servants or something, right?
>> It's like- >> Like they were beneath him.
>> Yeah, there was an incredibly weird sense of entitlement.
And he would say, when I had a Comedy Central special, I was treated this way.
Well, brother, you don't have one anymore, okay?
And no one at TYT is treated,
like none of the hosts are treated like they're royalty.
And so- >> Maybe we should change that.
>> [LAUGH] Right, and everybody who works here knows that, right?
It's the one guy who didn't know, it was you.
Anyway, so you see internally and we hear things too.
That's why he makes them sign this thing, cuz if they go and tell people afterwards,
that's how Jimmy treated me, so this whole thing of like, I'm on the left,
I care about workers, etc, that's gonna fall apart pretty quickly.