Out of interest, in the US can you turn to anyone who represents your interests in this case? There are no unions and no worker-representatives at all, aren't there?
Is everybody scared to stand up to your employer in those cases?
Is everybody scared to stand up to your employer in those cases?
Sure, you have to pay for it, but you have to pay for it indirectly if it's a union anyways. It's unfortunate that the costs aren't spread over the entire organization, but getting the opinion of a lawyer is not that expensive for a software engineer.
Personally I suspect that if he refused to sign this and they fired him for that he could have recovered significant damages under promissory estoppel, but that's something you'd need to check with a lawyer before actually doing it.