Condé Nast said it will end the use of non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements with its own employees in cases that involve harassment, discrimination or retaliation.
In a Friday memo to staffers, the publisher of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and Vogue said employees that have signed NDAs in the past could also be released from their non-disclosure stipulations on a “case by case basis.”
Stan Duncan, Condé’s chief people officer, noted in the memo that reporting by its own titles on the widespread abuse of such deals “prompted us to reconsider the role of NDAs at our own company.”
Most notably, The New Yorker published Ronan Farrow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on the Harvey Weinstein scandal after the story got spiked by NBC.
Since then, The New Yorker’s editorial union had demanded that Condé ban the use of NDAs on harassment and discrimination as part of its new contract.
The New Yorker’s rep with the NewsGuild of New York said she hadn’t been aware the announcement was forthcoming.
“I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that management has embraced our concept, including the extension of this policy to everyone at the company,” New Yorker union unit chair Natalie Meade told the Daily Beast, which first reported on the new policy. “Our union members look forward to ratifying our first CBA, which would enshrine this new industry standard.”
The NewsGuild also disclosed that it has obtained pledges to repeal NDA restrictions at two other publications, the Daily Beast and New York magazine.
“I applaud the Daily Beast and New York magazine for agreeing to an unequivocal elimination of such NDAs going forward and releasing employees from those that currently exist,” said NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava. “We look forward to Condé Nast’s agreement to our proposal at the Guild’s next bargaining session.”
NDAs became a lightning rod in the Democratic debate this week when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) blasted Mike Bloomberg for refusing to release parties from their vows of silence in actions against his media and information company.
Bloomberg insisted at the debate that there were “very few” NDAs involving the company.
“None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,” Bloomberg said during the debate.
On Friday, Bloomberg tweeted that his company has identified “three NDAs signed over the past 30+ years with women to address complaints about comments they said I had made.
“If any of them want to be released from their NDAs, they should contact the company and they’ll be given a release,” he added.
