Employers can't force you to keep quiet to get severance, labor board decides, reversing Trump-era rulings

• Companies can't require employees to waive their rights as part of a severance agreement.
• In a ruling on Tuesday, the National Labor Relations Board said such requirements are "unlawful."
• Workers can't be forced to "choose between receiving benefits and exercising their rights," NLRB's Lauren McFerran said.

Companies that make former workers promise not to disparage their former employers in exchange for a severance payment are breaking the law, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday, restoring what it said was an "important principle and longstanding precedent" that employees cannot be coerced into waiving their rights.