The Schwab Employee Rights Case

Employers cannot unlawfully condition your job, wages, or even a severance payment on the waiver or relinquishment of certain important rights. Your name, face and likeness belong to you.  So does your voice.  So does the trade or profession you choose to practice. 

Nevertheless, Charles Schwab & Co. and its affiliates (“Schwab”) require employees to sign documents that grant it the right to sell or use their name, likeness and voice, forever, “in any and all media worldwide,” as Schwab sees fit.  Schwab also requires employees to waive any claims that might arise from the misuse or abuse of their likeness, even if the misuse is defamatory or an invasion of a current or former employees’ right to privacy.    

Schwab – through overbroad and inappropriate confidentiality provisions and designations here, here, here, and here – also restrains its current and former employees’ rights by asserting the right to control information about wages, working conditions, and other subjects, including unlawful conduct. It prohibits employees from soliciting customers, clients, and co-workers for up to 18 months (or longer) if they leave Schwab’s employ.  Indeed, Schwab goes so far as to require employees to disconnect on LinkedIn from client contacts they have served and known – sometimes for years – if they ever leave Schwab’s employ.  This is unfair to employees and clients. 

Fortunately, the law gives employees the right to their own likeness and voice.  “The protection of name and likeness from unwarranted intrusion or exploitation is the heart of the law of privacy.”  Lugosi v. Universal Pictures (1979) 25 Cal.3d 813, 824.  Other laws establish an employee anti-gag rule that gives current and former employees the right to freedom of speech, to whistle-blow, and to compete.  Doe v. Google (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 948, 961; Edwards v. Arthur Andersen LLP (2008) 44 Cal.4th 937, 946.

Schwab has described employees as a firm’s “most important asset,” i.e., resource with economic value that the firm owns or controls.  Employees are more than assets.  They are individuals with intrinsic rights.  

Schwab vociferously denies or disagrees with the above statements.  For this reason and others, a Second Amended Complaint has been filed against Schwab on behalf of its current and former employees and the State of California.  As alleged in the complaint, Schwab’s employment practices are unlawful, and Schwab must abandon them and protect and abide by the rights of its employees.  

If you have information about employment policies and practices that infringe or invade the rights discussed above, or are interested in participating with or assisting Plaintiff in furthering employee rights at Schwab, contact us at 415.433.1064 or complete the on-line form on our contact page.

An important note

Schwab dislikes this webpage (or at least the prior versions of it) because it does not say what Schwab wants it to say.  Schwab has sent our office multiple cease and desist letters and has filed many pleadings with the Court asserting the webpage must be changed or taken down altogether lest Schwab’s employees see it after receiving notice of the lawsuit. The many documents containing Schwab’s complaints about the webpage are here.  

Schwab’s attempt to censor this webpage is yet another example of Schwab’s efforts to restrain the speech and control the disclosure of important information about employees’ rights under California law.  We decline to comply with Schwab’s demands and reject its arguments.  

Schwab employees are entitled to know, exercise, and enforce their rights.