The Fox chairman’s legal team filed a motion for the suit to be moved from a New Jersey Superior Court to a federal court last week, and also claimed Carlson breached her contract by trying to bypass the arbitration process outlined in her network contract.
The SCOTUS has done the American worker no favors by continuously finding in favor these employers’ “arbitration clauses” in contracts. Corporations–both as employers and manufacturers–wield far too much power over us.
By filing against Ailes personally (and not News Corp), I doubt that the contractual provision regarding arbitration doesn’t apply.
There’s no way sexual harassment is included in the issues mandating arbitration in any employment contract. It’s ridiculous.
It was early. I should have said, I doubt that the contractual provision regarding arbitration applies because the suit is a personal suit against Ailes and not the corporation. Now whether this impedes her ability to create a civil cause of action, I don’t know. However I suspect Carlson’s attorneys didn’t want to sue the corporation both because of the arbitration issue and also because Carlson hopes to be rehired eventually by Fox. Also this might give the Murdoch sons the motivation (that some claim they have) to get rid of Ailes earlier rather than later.
Bye bye Ailes. The corruption at the center of FOX is amazing.
Hannity speaks out in defense of Ailes? — a bottom of the barrel character witness.
Obviously. It’s on my DVR.
Roger is a wing nut Republican…in other words he’s either up to his ears in harassing women OR he’s a pedophile. But all will be forgiven when he prays to God and declares his allegiance to Christianity. Amen.
Dear Roger, we’ll keep a jail cell vacant and with your name on it next to your buddy Dennis Hastert!
I note that a couple of women say THEY were NOT propositioned by Ailes. I can understand why Ailes would forgo those particular opportunities. Q: are they blonde, slim and trim and under 25??? No: they are two former attorneys: who are somewhat mature!
She was fired. Why would her employment contract matter now?
I think you’re right. Someone asked in an older thread about why Ailes couldn’t just hire a prostitute and forego the much greater PR risks. Other commenters rightfully pointed out that these types of situations are often predatory and a sick power trip, and aren’t always just about sex. We keep seeing reports on how many other employees have come out in defense of Ailes, and I hardly see that as relevant to Carlson’s case (seriously, like anybody gives a shit what Hannity has to say about this). If she’s telling the truth, she was probably very specifically targeted for a number of reasons and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because of some perceived weakness in her.
[quote=“zrx1100, post:11, topic:40419, full:true”]
She was fired. Why would her employment contract matter now?
[/quote]Employment contracts apply to the time period when one was employed. Since she is alleging sexual harassment and a bad working environment (during the time she was employed), the specified contract negotiations would, in all likelihood, take precedence. My understanding is that each state has its own laws regulating what is and is not allowed in these contracts – but most laws are pretty lenient on the employer.
I am glad she’s doing this. It needed doing. It is right for her to do it. I hope she gets justice.
But for fuck’s sake, the woman spent most of her career at Fox spitting acid and showering contempt at the downtrodden and the oppressed of the Earth. The irony of the empathy deficit involved in a career of shitting on people who were powerless while being shat upon by the powerful is just too big for me to feel any actual personal sympathy for her. And waiting until she was fired to come forward doesn’t exactly qualify her for a Profile in Courage Award. Unless Paul Ryan is setting the standard this year, of course.
Not following all your points, but I agree that filing against Ailes only was a deliberate strategic choice
I also agree that going to that choice accommodates an impression that Rupert Murdoch has already gone past some threshold of critical control over the massive Fox brand / Newcorp / NewsInternational media empire, as well as a bet - how hopeful a bet, and how much of a bank shot, we just don’t know enough to judge; it’s the kind of thing better assessed subjectively by a player on the inside than by any outsider objectively, given so much of what’s involved has to do with assessing the personal characteristics of people we only think we know and the dynamics of particular relationships - that James Murdoch or which ever of the Murdoch offspring effectively inherits the FoxsNews bauble might choose to use rehiring Carlson for its sympbolic value.
From afar, this all looks to me a like a particularly naive variation on a Hail Mary pass, such as in a ‘values’ novel written for pre-teens, the Nancy Drew series or Clair Bee’s boys in sports novels. Apparently none of the Murdoch kids has exhibited anything like the lust, ruthless and zeal for journalistic empire building and power mongering that their dad showed in inheriting the much small much simple early Aus state of the empire, but otherwise, and there’ve been repeated rumors about how Rupert’s kids are repulsed by Ailes and find the whole FoxNewsChannel schtick personally embarrassing, but these the Rupert’s kids, FCOL, they’re not about to needlessly cruelly sack Ailes and hand their pop Ailes’ disembodied head.
Meanwhile, I really don’t think the Fox Personality Pro Ailes Endorsement Parade is going to have any effect:
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Sean: He never once asked me up.
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Geraldo: To someone less intimately acquainted with the complexities and nuance involved in running a media empire like Roger Ailes does, it will seem foreign, unfamiliar, even odd, possibly bent, perhaps twisted or perverse, even sick. But I am here in my solemn duty as a fact witness, to assure the world that in all the decades I’ve known Roger Ailes, it’s never been fully clarified whether he finds me fascinating as a sexual animal, or just intriguing as a journalist, and a man - a unusually youthful, shockingly fit, devastating attractive and clearly extraordinarily virile man, yet still “just” a man, no straddling Bette Middler in the dressing room monkey lust funny stuff at all.
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Greta: I’d cut him, and he knows it.
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Kimberly: Well, I can’t say, there were drinks I don’t really know what those were, can’t be sure I was always awake, and where I am sure of that it was awfully dark, and I remember feeling kinda funny but that happens a lot with me, you know?
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Bill: The Roger Ailes I know wouldn’t dare try to put his hands on me.
I don’t doubt for a minute that her allegations are true, but if she had stood up for her principles and quit rather then wait to be fired to voice them, she would have more validity.
Carlson is climbing a fairly steep hill and up against a giant to boot.
She did herself no favors by waiting until her contract was ended to file the suit because the Faux/Ailes claim that she basically has sour grapes for not being rehired is plausible.
The good that could come from this is that the female gender still employed at Faux sees that they either speak up now or risk being degraded after the fact.
I think that the loss of gainful employment and the fat financial income is a/the motivator for Carlson. If they would’ve rehired her, she’d still be a clam/stooge that stayed silent and backed the team, as she did for many years, because the money meant more.
She may win a small settlement just to shut her up but it will be negotiated behind the scenes and there will a gag order. That’s where the rubber will meet the road. Will she reject the funds and continue with her mission or is money the real motivation?
I’ll say she takes the money and shuts the hell up, which means that she loses.
I am so glad that Hannity, Geraldo and other males mentioned can vouch that they were never sexually harassed by Ailes. What a relief.
Iow, karma
But where’s O’Reilly?