Pre-employment agreements where employees sign away rights in order to work are becoming more popular.

IMO, the agreements are counter to the American ideal of a caste-free society. Executives often are required to sign agreements; however, those agreements are usually reviewed by lawyers for both sides and revised until both are semi-satisfied. A minimum wage employee has no such protection. Think twice about working for such a company, unless you can totally agree with the document you are asked to sign.

The alternatives are:
1. Not working for that employer.
This is only a temporary fix. As other employers pick-up on the idea of these protective documents, eventually the field of employers will narrow, especially in this industry which is shrinking already and becoming more consolodated. This is a flaw in the legal logic that allows such documents. If allowed to continue, these documents will become commonplace enough that much of America will be working under contracts that limit their rights as citizens.

2. Attempting to modify the document and slip it through.
Currently, this might work. As long as the document is signed, some companies might not fully review the document for changes. Getting a copy of the agreement from a friend, and then making a modified document on a computer could work. Scanners can be your friend. If the document was ever examined, you would be out the door, but the company would be hard pressed to prove you violated any portion of an agreement you never signed.

3. Signing with the notation "under duress." This is based on the idea that an agreement is invalid if signed at the point of a gun. This is "iff"y , but if the employee could prove that A. they had been already working for a company that suddenly required the signing of the form as a condition of employment, or B. that they had no other possibility of employment because of a disability and could back that up with documentation, they could have a case of signing under duress. The notation wouldn't be required, but would be an indication of the situation at the time of signing. There could be an expensive court battle.

4. Signing with other than a signature, such as a scrawled phrase "I do not agree to this" or "Drop Dead." I think the idea of legally changing your name to "I don't Agree" or "Invalid Signature" could be helpful in today's society. The idea again is placing the burden of responsibility back on the employer to insure the form is properly filled out.

5. Simply refusing to sign the form and hoping that the employer is desperate enough for your talents that the document will be overlooked. In rare instances with small companies, this might work.
If the company is big enough to have a designated human resources department, forget it.

In any event, ALWAYS get an immediate copy of every legal document you sign. You may also want to have it notarized if you suspect the original document could be ammended or changed in the future without your knowledge. (Forgery and fraud do happen.)

Other things that should be considered.

Minors are usually excluded from being able to sign legal documents. The signature is simply invalid. Check with a local lawyer or court.

Any company or person that demands the immediate signing of a document, without the chance to review it, or the chance to have a personal copy, is a sleeze. RUN, don't walk, away from these situations, no matter how inticing other aspects of the job offer might sound.

All of the above statements concern protection of individual rights as provided by our legal system. None of this should be interpreted that anyone should enter into any employment with a company on an adversarial relationship. Working for an employer requires being able to work as part of a team and understand the need for being flexible to meet the needs of the employer. Employers who trust employees to do that, and don't rely on pre-employment threats, are to be applauded.

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The last company I worked for was in no way on the leading edge of pre-employment or non-disclosure agreements. Yet I can see several of Jerry's ideas would simply not work; the lawyers are way ahead of them.

To be able to modify a contract, both sides (you and an authorized company representative) must initial any changes. To try to submit your own version would be crazy. The company could easily prove the alteration by showing the all the other, unmodified agreements previously signed by other employees, and the lack of any authorized company signature. At best, you would be out the door; at worst you could be sued for fraud.

The "under duress" notation would not really work, either. It would be pretty hard to prove, to a jury's satisfaction, you could not get any other work whatsoever. Regardless of a person's (dis)ablities, a company is not required by law to hire anyone. Although, the case where an existing employee was asked to sign such a form may hold up.

Signing, "I do not agree to this." or "Drop Dead." is the same as not signing at all, would certainly blow any chance of getting the job; in fact any of the above ideas would. No sign, no job. Try signing "Drop Dead" on your income tax form! It would be considered a "frivolous" return, and would land you in hot water.

At the last two companies I worked for, a person had to sign an additional, separate document stating you were *not* under any kind of duress. (I also had to sign a similar document for my mortage.) In addition, you agreed that you had looked over all the other documents (and each one was listed) and agreed to them. What's more, if any form was not signed in a clear manner (or was destroyed somehow), you would agree to resign the exact same form again.

One reason why these forms are getting popular is they are easily avaiable and cheap; you don't need a lawyer. They come with instructions describing what to do, and how to modify them to your company's needs. You can get them at any office supply store; some come as "boilerplate" forms in word processor software. There are inexpensive legal software applications that help you create you own common employment forms, and instruct you what to do to avoid common legal mistakes.

Example - a friend of mine is a self-employed database programmer who specialises in information systems for medical libraries. Her business expanded and she took on an assistant. Two months after joining that assistant became pregnant and eleven months later, went on maternity leave. Recent European Union legislation says that you have to give an employee paid maternity leave after they've been with you for six months (previously it was two years which, IMHO, is far more sensible). Anyway, three months into her paid maternity leave, the lady handed in her notice. My friend very nearly went bust after that.

Not that a contract saying 'I agree to waive my rights under [insert name of act here]' was an option, because that would be illegal. It would be possible for a contract to say that if an employee accepts paid maternity leave then she has to go back to work for that employer for an agreed period afterwards or pay the money back, which is what my friend proposes to do if she ever takes on anyone else. She reckons that to reduce the risk to her down to an acceptable level, the 'stay working for me or pay up' period would have to be at least five years.

The reality is that she does not intend to take on anyone else or expand her business beyond what she can take on herself. That is, potentially, a number of highly skilled jobs lost to the UK economy thanks to overzealous Euro law (and let's face it, the French and the Germans would dearly love to see our economy go down the pan, which is probably why they foist these laws on us in the first place).

What we need is a balance between the rights and job security of individual workers and the ability of businesses - especially small businesses - to continue to grow the economy, especially in these difficult times. IMHO, no-one seems to have got that balance right at the moment.

There is another area that I'm not sure if anyone has explored. An agreement or contract must be based on an exchange of value. Signing such a document may in some ways act as an employment contract, requiring the presenter of the agreement to employ the person for a "reasonable" amount of time. I wonder if a signor of one of htese might be entitled to rights otherwise lost in a "right-to-work" state.

The ADA changed some of the rules about a company being required to hire someone. Specifically, a person with correct qualifications responding to an invitation to apply for work cannot be denied employment based on the disability, provided the employer can reasonably accomodate that person. Yes, this is a stretch to use the law this way. Yes, it could get tossed out of court or go into a messy battle, but it may be one way that these "agreements" are attacked as more and more people realize the overall impact they could have on society.

You are incorrect about the signing implications. Actually, many people who are tax protesters do sign off on income tax forms in strange ways, including signing "under duress". As long as the required tax is paid, they get away with it. Similarly, an employee who didn't sign the form properly but conducted themselves according to the intent of the form might not raise any eyebrows.

I have to admire the idea of a form that states in essense, "By signing this, I agree that I am not under duress." Every kidnapper should keep a ream of these forms on hand. Every robber should require his victim to sign these in triplicate. I'd almost be willing to go out and rob someone of $5 and have them sign a form, just to get case law on the books that these are self-referencing legal masturbations not worth the paper they are printed on.

As for being unemployed, well, I guess I could fall into that catagory since I have my own business. I see a lot of smart people starting their own businesses, or acting as independent contractors, thus avoiding a lot of this crap.

The extremes of paternalistic government laws and unrestricted capitalist find 'em, fuck 'em, & forget 'em attitudes towards employees are both unacceptable in a mature society. These "agreements" are just one more battle in the drive to keep a middle ground. Leo has it pegged. We need balance, not extremes.

FWIW, I have never in the past, nor will I ever in the future, ever sign a document that forces me to "willingly" sign away my rights. They are mine. You can't have them. Even if you say you have them, you don't.

I'll even state publicly that if you ever see my signature on such a document, it will have been signed under duress, and that signature will have no validity.

Speaking of signing things, my employer TRIED to force me to sign a BLANK timecard, with the following under my signature:
"XXXX compensates its employees for time spent performing job functions for the company. The above signature affirms my agreement to the times and paid hours totals listed below." It was like signing a blank check!! When I refused, and encouraged my coworkers to do the same, my manager said, "You need to sign that now or you won't get paid on time."

Company A requires a pre-employment non-disclosure "agreement" be signed. Employment is not forthcoming, the offer being retracted at the last minute, perhaps because of an unsatisfactory background check. The form is kept on file as required by law. Unfortunately, the potential employee has learned something secret about the business practices of the company during the orientation tour he took prior to the retraction, and a month later he makes that information public. The company sues based on the signed non-disclosure "agreement." Is the "agreement" valid?

If the agreement is valid, what item of value has the potential employee received? An orientation tour wouldn't seem to be an item of value, but more truthfully would be yet another hidden cost to the potential employee, who ended up unremunerated for the time and travel involved. The secret business practices likewise have no intrinsic value to the potential employee. I suspect the agreement would be judged invalid.

If the agreement is invalid, then it is invalid because the employer reniged on the job offer, thus breaking a signed agreement. If this is the case, the potential employee could then countersue for damages, putting the company in the awkward position of having to argue exactly counter to their original suit.

The primary defense would probably be that the agreement was a standard form and not an agreement signed by both parties. In such case, if that defense prevailed, all other similar agreements that weren't signed by a corporate officer could become invalid.

I just give the above example simply as one way to show that pre-employment agreements can backfire on the employer. If such agreements were part of a written job contract, then it would be much harder for such events to happen.

As I have said before, the current "agreements" are one-sided at best, and upon closer inspection stink of coercion rather than mutual respect between employer and employee.

I am reminded of an anti-scam show on television, where the producers set up a table on a sidewalk and asked people to enter a contest for a free car. The document that each one signed in order to enter the contest clearly stated outrageous but perfectly legal demands, such as the contestant agreeing to sign over all personal property, etc. Quite literally, these adults were willing to give away everything they had earned for the chance of winning a car. The current pre-employment documents are not far removed from this scam. "Get a chance at a job in a theatre! Sign here!" While you are signing without thinking, get "I'm stupid" tatooed on your forehead at the same time. That way you won't forget when that signature comes back and bites you in the ass.

I write programs. If I had signed an "intellectual property" agreement at the last theatre chain where I worked, I could be having to pay a portion of my income to them for that mistake. If I had signed one at every company where I have ever worked, I couldn't afford to develop my software. My only salvation would have been that most of these companies went bankrupt or out of business.

Think twice, and then wait a few days and think again before signing away any of your rights.

I'm not really against the idea of agreeing to independant arbitration, it's just that from what I've seen, the arbitrator aways agrees with the company!

Things are tough now, so companies can get away with demands. But it was true that for the past 4 years (in the tech-sector anyway), workers could demand higher pay. These things seem to cycle back and forth.

Thinking of that Vermont case, the US Supreme Court ruled you can not give up your constutional rights even if you want to in, "Fay vs. Noia - 1963."