Latest news with #Can't
Euronews
08-07-2025
- Business
- Euronews
No more silence: UK to ban controversial NDAs silencing abuse at work
Ministers in the UK tabled amendments to the Employment Rights Bill on Monday night to prohibit the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to cover up workplace misconduct. On Tuesday morning, the UK government posted an update on their website confirming the change to the bill, expected to become law later this year. This comes as part of the government's Plan for Change in a bid to address workplace rights and equality, which it describes as 'the biggest upgrade to workers' rights in a generation". NDAs, legal contracts that prevent certain pieces of information from being shared, were historically created to protect intellectual property or other sensitive details. However, they are increasingly being used to stop workers from speaking out about bad experiences in the workplace. Employers will no longer be able to use NDAs, even those signed before the amendment, to silence staff who have been victims of harassment or discrimination. It will also allow witnesses of inappropriate behaviour to report incidents and support victims without the threat of being sued. The original purpose of non-disclosure agreements to protect intellectual property and commercially sensitive information will still be allowed. In response to the developments, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner posted on X: 'Victims and witnesses of harassment and discrimination have been silenced for too long. This Labour government will stamp it out.' Campaign group Can't Buy My Silence, led by Harvey Weinstein's former PA Zelda Perkins, has led the charge alongside lawmakers Louise Haigh and Sarah Russell to bring this change to the table. 'This is a huge milestone, for years, we've heard empty promises from governments whilst victims have continued to be silenced. To see this Government accept the need for nationwide legal change shows that they have listened and understood the abuse of power taking place,' Perkins said in a statement. 'Above all though, this victory belongs to the people who broke their NDAs, who risked everything to speak the truth when they were told they couldn't. Without their courage, none of this would be happening. 'This is not over yet and we will continue to focus closely on this to ensure the regulations are watertight and no one can be forced into silence again. If what is promised at this stage becomes reality, then the UK will be leading the world in protecting not only workers but the integrity of the law.' It is unclear exactly when the changes will be implemented as the bill still needs to go back to the House of Lords before it can pass into law. Parliament's summer recess begins on 22 July. The legal change would bring the UK in line with countries like Ireland and the United States, who have already banned the use of NDAs to silence victims of sexual harassment and discrimination.
New Indian Express
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Femme Fatale
Shinie Antony, known for her novella The Girl Who Couldn't Love (Speaking Tiger; ₹299), is a figure ubiquitous in Bengaluru's literary circuits. Through lyrical and deft prose, her work epitomises a struggle between bitterness and bereavement, primarily through first-person narratives. Recently, the author discussed three of her books: Can't (Speaking Tiger; ₹350), Eden Abandoned (Hachette India; ₹499), and Hell Hath No Fury (Hachette India; ₹599). A perfunctory glance at Antony's Google page would reveal that all three aforementioned books, along with ExObjects, an anthology Antony edited with AT Boyle, released in 2024. What might seem as a burst of prolific literary output, according to Antony, is incidental. She remarks, 'That is purely accidental. The two anthologies – Hell Hath No Fury and ExObjects – were compiled with themes of revenge and grief, respectively, and the writers were just terrific. The novella Can't had been written just before Covid, hence, in the queue longer; meanwhile, Eden Abandoned, a monologue by Adam's first wife, Lilith, happened.' In the jilted lover of Can't , the story of the forgotten Lilith, and the stories of Hell Hath no Fury (edited by Antony), the reader encounters women who are righteous in their ire. It is both implied and understood that it is crucial to not only write stories of women whose anger is justified, but also excavate such stories from the common mythos, like that of Lilith's. Antony concurs, adding, 'Gender is the real religion, with women being secondary citizens all over the world, right from the start. In mythology, it is important to exhume the women, as they were all originally written by men. 'Bad women' give everyone the heebie-jeebies; and the disrespect that society accords them – they zing it right back. The damned, in a way, are free to be themselves. They have nothing left to lose. There is nothing more liberating than the world thinking the worst of you.' 'This Little Heart of Mine', Antony's authorial contribution in the short-story anthology that is Hell Hath No Fury, centres around a student narrator, revealed at the outset as the victim of an ongoing rape. As in the entire corpus of her work, there is a deliberate insistence on imagery and simile, arguably acting as the primary narrative vehicle. Likening the narrator's thighs to falling 'wings' also hints at an inverted reference to WB Yeats' 'Leda and the Swan'. As Antony shares, 'I once read that metaphors and similes come from an unsound mind. Maybe that's true. The thighs in 'This Little Heart of Mine' fall like dead wings, because she cannot move, literally. Leda too, perhaps, had no say in the matter. A girl can't escape, not from Zeus.' Like the religious refashioning of Lilith casts her as demonic and monstrous, patriarchal contemporaneity stands to project the same accusation on the other 'bad women' that exist out of Antony's nib as well. As she shares, even (or especially) as children, it is important to read, to persist, and to document. 'What is lost in this whole good girl/bad girl debate is the human element. Who we are as opposed to who we are told to be. Modern-day Indian children's books already include this theme. Young desi heroines come fitted with fangs,' she asserts.
