Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson speaks out against Missouri tort reform bills

Two bills currently wending their way through the Missouri Senate seek to roll back longstanding protections for employees in Missouri.

One, SB 43, seeks to amend the Missouri Human Rights Act in a way that makes it more difficult for employees to prove claims of discrimination and harassment. It would also cap whistleblower damages. The other, SB 45, makes it harder for employees to challenge the terms of arbitration agreements signed with their employers.

As Bert Braud, a plaintiffs’ attorney with the Popham Law Firm, said in our recent story on these bills: “If you’ve got a company that’s being sued over and over and over again for sexual harassment, and each dispute ends up in arbitration, the public will never know that company is a bad actor.”

That sounds an awful lot like Fox News these days. A cascade of lawsuits publicized over the last few years paint a picture of a workplace rife with top-down sexual harassment. This weekend, it was reported that Fox has settled lawsuits amounting to at least $13 million with women who’ve accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment. And last year, former Fox chairman Roger Ailes was forced out after multiple women at Fox accused him of unwanted sexual advances.

Read more: http://www.pitch.com/news/blog/20857069/former-fox-news-anchor-gretchen-carlson-speaks-out-against-missouri-tort-reform-bills