> I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws.

What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to thing.

TrackerFF 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

Some contracts are illegal, and purely made to intimidate the other party - and completely rests on the fact that said other party will never challenge or even check if the contract is valid in the first place. Hence why so many of these contracts also have arbitration clauses which stipulate that the parties must resolve through private arbitration.

Any time someone has the balls to challenge these things is also a win for the working man.

	▲	0x3f 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law. You mean, like the one in the article the GP is pretending not to understand?

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nativeit 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Human Cent-iPad style?

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browningstreet 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And yet it’s not even that simple. Contracts can be invalidated.

Other countries have fairness doctrines with allow/disallow lists of things that can be included in contracts.

There are other ways.

	▲	dghlsakjg 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The US has limits on contracts as well, and courts can and will invalidate clauses or entire contracts for a variety of reasons. Read any of your terms and conditions, there is almost always a clause in there saying that if a clause is found to be unenforceable, you agree that the rest of the contract is still valid. The bar is a lot lower in the states, but it’s still there. E.g. You can sign a contract to work for less than minimum wage, it will be entirely thrown out in court.

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idop 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except that a well functioning society that expects its laws to be respected cannot allow the law to be circumvented by commercial agreements.

If a country passes a law that guarantees all its citizens the right to free speech, and now a company forces (!) a citizen to sign a contract saying they waive that right in order to receive the compensation they're entitled to anyway, why should the country accept that? Why should that person lose their right to free speech? Did the country give the company the authority to cancel its own laws at will?

It's the same with companies forcing candidates to sign non-compete agreements in order to be hired, if and when the company fires them. If you're a lawyer, and your employer fires you, what do you do? Work as a cashier for 3 years until the NCC expires? Change your career?

No company should have the authority to make the illegal legal (or vice-versa), and no country should accept its own citizens giving away their rights to some for-profit company. That's mafia shit: "If you excercise your right to free speech to expose our crimes, we will withhold the money we owe you and ruin your life in court".

Sign me up!!