Amandapetersak

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 94 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States (this will likely change), computational positions (this will likely change as well), process positions (coming soon....), academic positions (likely never.)

Coming soon: a process chemistry version - I promise! (soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon)

I have recently learned that Bristol-Myers Squibb is presenting its employees with a nasty choice: continued employment at BMS requires agreeing that future legal disputes with the company will, for eternity, give up the right to suing the company, but instead will rely on arbitration by a for-profit arbitration organization.

Among other things, the agreement states that:

• the employees give up the right to be a part of a class action lawsuit
• the employees' rights to go to the government with concerns is not limited (whew!)
• the employees have the right to challenge the arbitration agreement (generous of them)
• worker's compensation, unemployment, ERISA, NLRB are not covered by the agreement

BMS employees have until January 22, 2016 to decide if they will agree to continue to be employed under this agreement. Apparently, all new employees will be asked to sign away their rights to sue as well.

My understanding of arbitration clauses has been that this is a growing phenomena in retail disputes or disputes with financial firms, but a brief perusal of the internet indicates this is an increasingly common practice. The National Employment Lawyers Association (certainly NOT an uninterested party in this case) claims 27% of US employers have these sorts of binding arbitration agreements with their employees. I understand that arbitration firms are, in general, pretty friendly to employers, although this is an impression and not a peer-reviewed scientific fact.

Sadly, it appears to me there is little (short of political action at the Congressional level) that the employees of BMS can do in this situation. I do not love the class-action system (I think it's a terrible legal kludge with bad incentives), but it seems like one of the few remaining constraints on employer power in the employer-employee relationship.

Readers, do you have experience with such agreements? Can you name other major employers of chemists that currently have such agreements? How does a chemist best decide to protect themselves? 

DOI: 10.1021/cm404062r

DOI: 10.1021/ja404371k

DOI: 10.1021/ja402680c

DOI: 10.1021/cm400363n