I can see why HR won't provide performance references. But I'm talking about if I'm a star employee and want to leave, I ask my boss if they'll write me a recommendation letter or if I can list them as a positive reference on my apps, they aren't allowed to by the company and may even get fired for it.

That’s what I am talking about too. Companies don’t allow any sort of references of former employees, positive or otherwise, and from any level of management. It’s too hard to police and much simpler to just not allow the practice. It’s frustrating from the employee and prospectus employer perspective, but I see why companies do this. Bad apples can be very time-consuming and expensive to deal with.

I've provided references from former co-workers, clients, etc. Never from an actual manager. Also no idea if references have ever been checked or not--especially given I knew a lot of folks at the hiring company.

He is explaining to you the valid reason, and you are simply not understanding it. People sue, very often, even in spots where the responsibility should have been on them.

Companies stopped doing these sorts of things because companies got sued. It is very easy to bring a lawsuit, And while it is, perhaps not very easy to win it, someone still can easily have six figures in defending themselves.

If you don’t like that, OK, I don’t either, it is awful. But it is a rational response to a problem that happens.

"He is explaining to you the valid reason, and you are simply not understanding it."

Oh I understand it. But do you see the big picture here? People should be sueing for them not writing the letter. The NLRB should be taking cases for this as well. This is almost as anticompetitive as non-competes.

Edit: shouldn't have said for not writing the letter, just for a policy forbidding the writing of letters.

> People should be sueing for them not writing the letter

This gets awfully close to compelled speech. The only way this could be done is if we remove the right for employees to sue in respect of the content of the letter, which in turn opens up avenues for retaliation.

Written recommendations are bullshit. The ban should be on requesting them.

My edit shows what I meant. I wouldn't support requiring references, just preventing companies from having policies forbidding them. I've had manager who would have gladly written me a great recommendation but policies prevented it.

A ban on requesting them would also work.

Maybe a law shifting liability for references from the employer to the person providing it is the fix.

What law would this policy violate? What’s the basis for the suit? That you think it might be anti-competitive because it reduces labor mobility?

Based on the article, it seems that this could be reasonable to pursue. You don't need to break a law for a lawsuit, just show damages resulting from another's actions. If you convince the NLRB or a jury that not providing references suppress your ability to get a job or increase your salary at the next job, that could be all that is needed. But this would be applicable to laws on anticompetitive behavior, but that's more of an NLRB thing.

Also consider this case. A manager writes a couple of glowing letters of recommendations for a couple of former employees that did great on the job. Wonderful. Now a poor performer asks and the manager doesn't feel comfortable writing a recommendation at all: either they'd risk having to be candid or there's simply no basis for "recommendation" and so the manager refuses.

Well, now even the omission/refusal to write such a letter might get you sued. A policy that says our managers just don't write such letters is absolutely the safest. 1) the company and its managers don't identify in any way their thoughts on performance in a way that might be found prejudicial; 2) they avoid the risk of a poorly worded recommendation that could be called prejudicial; 3) they avoid having to monitor the standards and risks of such statements across possibly many managers that might write such letters absent such a rule.

You forgot the biggest benefits to the company - increased retention rates and salary suppression.

You forgot the biggest drawback to employers: not being able to get honest feedback about the prospective employee from the previous employer.

It's a noisy signal.

Some employers still answer a binary question "Eligible to re-hire? Yes/no" and that tells a lot in one bit of information. Of course some employers are vindictive and they just say no out of spite. Others will not answer anything except confirm dates of employment. Or they provide a good reference on a bad employee just so they leave without having to fire them.

But what if you get a bad letter of recommendation and sue about it? What if the manager refuses to write you a letter of recommendation and you sue them? The easiest solution from the company is simple: don't allow any letters of recommendation.

That is what my former manager told me when I left my previous employer. He thought highly of my skills, but couldn't write me a letter due to company policy motivated by these concerns about being sued.

What if I sue and have the NLRB open a case against them for the unfair, anti-trust labor practice of not allowing any letters to be written?

You'll lose because it isn't unfair or anti-trust. It's not nice, but there's nothing illegal about it.

The first amendment is widely interpreted to mean that you can't compel speech. Requiring a company to write recommendation letters would be compelling speech. That would be unconstitutional.

(And it doesn't matter if an individual manager would like to write a letter of recommendation but corporate policy is against it. The manager is paid by the company, would be sharing company information, and is an agent of the company in this regard.)

> Requiring a company to write recommendation letters would be compelling speech

It would, but that's not what's being discussed.

The accusation is that the companies are restricting speech by saying that managers cannot provide a reference, even if they clearly state in said reference that the views are their own and not that of their employer. Nobody is trying to compel anyone else to provide a reference, the idea is that nobody should be prohibited from it, especially since for long term employees leaving on good terms their manager(s) is/are probably one of their best references.

Companies are allowed to restrict speech by their employees about company information. Otherwise everyone would be allowed to leak every trade secret.

A manager's evaluation of another employee's performance is internal company information. There's no reason that a company should be compelled to share that information externally.

It doesn't matter if the manager wants to share it, any more than the manager wants to share all the source code the employee has written.

Companies are allowed to determine what gets shared by their current employees, end of story. On the other hand, it is unconstitutional for the government to override that.

There are exceptions for things like public companies that are compelled to release certain data on a quarterly basis in exchange for the benefits of being publicly traded. And plenty of information can be compelled to be shared privately with the government, whether taxes or for health inspections or whatever.

But absolutely not forcing companies to allow their employees to talk publicly about other employees' performance.

Managers and supervisors are not protected by the NLRA, so whether they might like to provide a reference isn't really a matter of concern for the NLRB. (In practice, managers provide references informally all the time, and I can't imagine a company actually taking action against them for that unless the reference causes some huge problem.)

I know a manger at my company that provided a reference and was reprimanded for it. They even told him I'd he ever does it again, he's fired. I heard of at least one other manager who was actually fired.

If there were a formal company policy, I'd probably either demure or, if I felt strongly about it, make sure it was over beers at the bar or in some other venue that there was no record.

>But what if you get a bad letter of recommendation and sue about it?

This is trivial to solve: both former employer and employee sign the letter, declaring that information in it is full, correct and they have no objections. It would be much harder to sue if you previously agreed that the letter is ok for you.

A negotiated letter is worthless.

Depends on how you read it. There’s a big range of possibilities between „we won’t write bad things“ and „this person is a rock star“.

This is an example of how labor laws can hurt high-performing employees. Another is salary transparency requirements.

But there isn't a labor law supporting that. It's simply an anticompetitive corporate policy.

‘Established case law” or ‘Legal precedence’ to be more precise. Thank you. Ex-employees do have generous legal ground to sue for defamation.

Edit: and remember, this is to file a suit, not win a defamation suit, which can be difficult. However it is very expensive for an employer to defend itself, easily tens of thousands if not six figures of dollars. How the game is played is a disgruntled ex-employee files a suit and then tries to settle for low tens of thousands of dollars, a portion of which goes to the employment attorney they hired.

there is no way to verify that’s real though. Anyone could have a friend write a letter for them and say it’s from an old boss.

when you have current employees talking about former employees on behalf of the company, that is the same thing as the company talking about them.

You could call to confirm it, have it notarized, etc. But that's not really an issue since this practice used to be common and is sill common in many forms of employment today - some government jobs, academia, etc.

I don't see it as the same as the company speaking. Things like concerted efforts by the workers to make conditions better are protected and not considered company speech. I guess it's only because they're managers that they don't qualify.

Most companies will only verify dates of employment, and possibly whether the employee is eligible for rehire (yes/no, without getting into reasons).

Writing a letter of reference is more and more a risky thing and even in non-employment situations, more people are reluctant to do it.

That’s what HR will do.

Most companies don’t constrain an individual employee from providing a recommendation. People might not want to do it, but that’s a different issue.

Someone might sue because (they think) a letter wasn’t effusive enough to get them a job they wanted, or because someone else got a letter and they didn’t.

And why can't I sue for this being an unfair labor practice? There should be more risk on this side of it than the other.

It is not an unfair labor practice, nobody owes you a letter of recommendation.

Corporations that have this policy always tell you that when you check on a prospective employee. “ Our policy is only to give dates of employment and X worked here from…”

It is not a negative when you check on somebody and hear that. I’ve heard it many times. I can hardly take it as a sign of a bad employee when their company simply has a policy not to give references

> nobody owes you a letter of recommendation

It some countries they do. A friend sued his former employer because the letter of recommendation he got was not good enough. Strange thing is they agreed and also contacted him to come back working for them. But it depends on the country, in some countries letters of recommendation are very rare, I wrote a couple in more than 20 years, basically every time someone that worked for or with me asked for one.

In the US, my sense is that letters of recommendation are pretty rare (at least past school admissions where they're pretty worthless). Oh, there's a ton of informal networking but very little official you should hire this person (or especially) run away now. I'd never do the latter.

Companies at least used to ask for references on resumes in the US but I'm not sure how common that is at this point and it was usually co-workers/clients/etc, and not sure how often it was even checked.

In Europe it is very different; in Romania they are almost never used, in the Switzerland they are almost mandatory.

They don't have to owe you something for it to be unfair. It's anticompetitive behavior that makes getting another job harder. It's fine if they don't write you a letter. What isn't fine is a policy that forbids the writing of letters.

It doesn't make your getting a job harder. And even if it did, it's not your employer's responsibility to help you get another job. Do you think they should also be required to give you paid leave to go interview elsewhere? They shouldn't unreasonably hinder you, but they are under no obligation to help you go work elsewhere.

Also, no sane employer would be like "well this guy worked at a corporation that doesn't give references, guess I can't hire him." If you think that's how people who hire think, you must not hire. It isn't.

It would be a problem if a corporation gave references to some people and then declined to other times, because then it could be construed as negative, which is exactly why they have that policy.

It's not really anticompetitive though. It doesn't make getting another job harder because virtually nobody is getting references. Everyone's on the same playing field here.

Letters of recommendations, or even reference phone calls, are something that are widespread in academia and in entry-level service jobs. Like if you want to be a server or bartender, they want to make sure you were actually showing up at your last job and didn't steal money from the register.

They're not really a thing in the corporate world. Your technical expertise, certifications, and dates of employment pretty much speak for themselves. At least in the US.

There are some people getting references. Most places also ask for references. Informally, all the people talking about jobs found via their network are references.

It is absolutely harder finding a job without references than with references. You also have less leverage for negotiating salary.

"Your technical expertise, certifications, and dates of employment pretty much speak for themselves."

This isn't true at all. Why do interviews if you just make the decision off the resume? Why do code screens or LeetCode?

I have tons of experience and a long tenure, a masters degree, multiple certs, etc yet I'm a low performer with a disability who struggles to even get interviews. But you wouldn't know that by looking at my resume. At one point I was a high performer and a letter of recommendation could have really helped me.

I never said make a decision off of a resume. When I said "your technical expertise", I meant as assessed by interviews, code screens, etc.

I've never even been asked for references at any technical job in my life. HR departments generally do make some attempt at verifying employment, doing a background check, etc.

So no, in these cases it's not harder. There's no leverage either way.

Because what do reference letters even mean? How do you know the person writing the letter is even telling the truth? This is somebody you've never met and don't know at all. How do you know they don't unfairly hold a grudge against this ex-employee because they took it personally when they quit? Or how do you know they don't just write glowing references for everyone because they know "it's tough out there" and "everyone deserves a second chance"?

I always assumed this is why I've never been asked for references in my professional career, because the companies I applied to knew that references aren't worth the paper they're written on.

These are all concerns, but it's still common in stuff like academia and government jobs. Even in industry, I see requests for references on about half of applications these days.

The easy fix here is banning requests for references.

I suspect it's much easier for someone to sue on the claim of being unfairly discriminated against than on the claim that a particular company policy with a legitimate stated justification is an unfair labor practice.

Just because there's a justification doesn't make it an excuse to participate in anticompetitive behavior. The NLRB getting involved seems like a bigger risk than the letter of recommendation.

To attempt a more measured response: given that the NRLB hasn't gotten involved in any company with this policy that's clearly not true.

You are wrong. Since you show no signs of recognizing that, or providing any reason to back up your assertions, I'm done with this conversation.

"You are wrong. Since you show no signs of recognizing that, or providing any reason to back up your assertions, I'm done with this conversation."

Lol ok. You realize I can say the exact same thing to you...

The difference is that me and others have repeatedly explained why you are wrong in this thread, and you keep repeating the same nonsense assertions.

I thought you said you were done?

You've offered no facts to support what little you've said. You "suspect" some things and have been told some other things by your manager. I too have been told things by managers and suspect things myself. But I guess because it's your opinion, everyone else's opinion must be wrong.

I'm sorry for my earlier responses. I was becoming ill, didn't realize it, and that messes with my temper. One day I'll learn not to argue with people on the internet when that happens.

So .. have they stopped asking for them? Or it this a "We'll defect in prisoner's dilemma with no consequences to us" move?

Can you provide an example article or case law when this happened?

Again, that sounds like a good reason, but it’s not the reason, and it would be easy to solve. The reason is wage suppression.