I've seen a lot of strange stuff in my 26-plus-year career as an attorney for employers. But this story takes the cake … and it might just run away with the title of the Worst Employer of 2024 when the votes are counted at year's end.
I present to you … the "Slave Contract."
An employee fired by software company Tradeshift recently filed a lawsuit alleging that the company's former CEO required her to sign a "Slave Contract" as a condition of her employment and then subjected her to years of sexual abuse, subjugation, and violence.
Her horrific allegations include years of rapes and bloody beatings. According to her lawsuit, the CEO's torment included "inflicting physical pain through various means, urinating on her, and regularly using foreign objects to penetrate her."
Further according to the lawsuit, the plaintiff claims that she was to "submit complete to the master in all ways," always be "sexually available for her master when he needs sex and never to refuse him sex," and to accept whatever punishments he chose to dole out "without being angry, sullen or frustrated with her master" and must "thank him after."
The agreement also required her, according to the lawsuit, to dress in "a proper, feminine way," to keep her weight between 130 and 155 pounds, and to send him weekly spreadsheets of her progress.
For its part, Tradeshift fired the CEO late last year for "gross misconduct on multiple grounds" after management became aware of "serious allegations of sexual assault and harassment," and denies the allegations made against the company.
The CEO, meanwhile, vehemently denies the allegations, claiming that the plaintiff is his ex-girlfriend and that they were in a prior consensual sexual relationship.
While a lawsuit is nothing more than a collection of unproven facts, these facts are just too outrageous to be an act of fiction … not to mention that the plaintiff appended a copy of the Slave Contract to her complaint.
If this is what this year’s Worst Employer contest is going to look like, then buckle up. It’s going to be quite the year.