The separation agreements that Meta had thousands of its former employees sign during a mass layoff in 2022 were unlawful, according to a recently published decision from a judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Meta laid off 7,511 of its U.S.-based employees between August 21, 2022, and February 20, 2023. About 96% of those former employees — 7,236 — voluntarily signed a separation agreement that offered more severance pay and other benefits in exchange for waiving their rights to speak publicly about their employment or termination.
However, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Andrew Gollin wrote in his decision last week that the non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in the agreements violated workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
More specifically, the decision stated Meta’s separation agreements infringed on the employees’ rights in Section 7 of the act, which “affords employees the right to seek to improve their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment or otherwise improve their lot as employees through channels both inside and outside their immediate employee-employer relationship.”
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According to the decision, Meta’s separation agreements breached Section 8(a)(1) of the act which, in short, makes it an unfair labor practice for companies to interfere with or restrain employees from exercising their Section 7 rights.
The judge recommended the tech conglomerate immediately stop entering into separation agreements with the "unlawful, overbroad non-disparagement and confidentiality sections" as well as notify all of the past employees who signed the agreements that it has rescinded those clauses and will not enforce them. Meta will also have to certify it complied with the remedies.
The case was brought to the NLRB by David James Carlson, one of the former Meta employees who signed a separation agreement, the day after the board published its decision on McLaren Macomb in February 2023. That decision upheld the precedent that employers can't offer severance agreements that force employees to broadly waive their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
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Even though the board's decision for McLaren Macomb came after Meta entered into the separation agreements, Carlson argued the case should be applied retroactively.
Meta previously denied allegations that it violated federal labor laws, but has not issued a statement since the judge's decision was published last week.
