Human memory is a rather shady thing. How many of the university lectures do you still remember? Now imagine yourselves 10 years down the road, at a beer with other people getting asked about an event related to that company. Will you assume the rights of speech you forfeited for the rest of your life and remember them every time you will have the chance to speak differently?
When you're 80 and possibly with Alzheimer -- does that count too?
If I had a choice to sign the agreement or not, of my own free will and with no incentive, I may actually do so. Like you, I have no particular desire to speak ill of anyone, deservedly or not. Time spent disparaging a former employer is time which could have been better spent moving forward.
But when you offer me an incentive for signing the contract? It makes me wonder why these rights I'm giving up are worth so much to the company. And feeling like I'm being bribed or pressured to do something is one of the best ways to manipulate me into not doing it, just because I'm so stubborn :)
If you're asked to sign one when you leave, depending on your contract, any severance package might be considered consideration.
You're looking at it the wrong way. There are two ways the company can approach it. The first: we need to let this person go, but we don't want to fuck up his career and personal life and we don't want him fucking up ours, so we'll give enough severance to cover the gap and a positive reference. And no lawyer will let the company offer severance without nonlitigation and nondisparagement. The second: fuck this guy, toss him overboard. Usually, when a good company does a layoff, it's the first. That's why they offer the severance. In part, it's to keep you from saying bad things about them. But it's also, at good companies, because they know it pays off in the long-term to have the people they laid off still feel some good will toward them. Careers are long.
You don't have to sign severance agreements that give your rights and employers don't have to pay you severance over what is required by law. If those rights are worth more to you than the severance don't sign.
I know you mean well, so I say this without trying to be antagonistic and start up a "debate." The thing is, this is from the world of principles, and despite what you may have been told incessantly, there is no direct way to value a principle.
The whole idea of selling this principle breaks down immediately if you imagine the President saying this to me:
"We're paying you this money so that you can keep quiet about us." My response would be, "Why pay, you can have that for free!"
From an economic standpoint, it probably costs me far more than they would consider paying to disparage them. I could write a witty blog post, get some HN karma, maybe sell a few books, and feel grand. But forever afterwards, I'd be going to job interviews, or trying to raise money for a startup, or whatever, and people would be saying "He's a nice guy, but I worry that he'll write about our private business."
If we sit down and think of this thing in dollars and cents, they'd have to pay me handsomely to disparage them. The whole thing is ridiculous. I'm not insulted that they want to go through the exercise of asking and being rebuffed, but by response is always going to be, "How about you pay me the severance, and I don't sign this, and then I go about doing what I've always done, which to date has been exactly what you want."
And then the President says, "Why should we pay?" And I counter, "So that I can tell anyone who asked that you have been fair to me, instead of saying that I have nothing to say about how our business concluded." And maybe that is worth something to the company, maybe not.
But really, you can't buy principles. If you could, they weren't principles, they were "wouldn't it be nice if it was convenient to act this way" ideas.
I think you (and the NYT piece author) take a somewhat extreme position but I certainly support your right to take it. I hope you would allow others to see this differently and sign these agreements if they prefer the money.
I want the right to do those things, but I don't actually want to do them.
Now of course, they always say, "Yeah, maybe not you, but somebody." To which I say, "That's why you took so long to check my references before hiring me. I'm no longer somebody. And if it mattered that much, you should have put it in the employment agreement so that I could have declined the job before taking it."
The only people who should feel morally compelled to sign no-disparagement clauses before accepting severance are people who are being fired for leaking confidential information on the job.