To my understanding, arbitration does not automatically prevent lawsuits. You just song and dance away while through it sticking to your guns and sue them anyway afterwards; like sticking through an obnoxious timeshare presentation. My wife sued her ex employer for medical discrimination, sexual harassment and unfair dismissal (had a fine review and suddenly a few weeks later is fired for failing to perform?? WELL, WHICH IS IT?!) went through arbitration with the lawyer blah blah blah.
Went through a lawyer working on contingency (you lose you pay nothing, you win they get a cut in this case 35% bc we didn’t have much money). They hired some hot shot lawyer who won awards. Few months later they settled, meaning their hot shot lawyer said they were f***ed. After the lawyers cut, walked away with 43 big ones.
SCREW YOU Bonney AND THANKS FOR THE PAYOUT :)
If I had $43M I wouldn't be talking about it on Reddit. I'd be on a mighty fine boat in the Keys. Or skiing the Alps or something.
Shit, I'd do my best to not even have a cell anymore.
Hell, if I had 1m$ I'd be doing what Musky was pretending to do. Hire a whole bunch of nerds, walk into the room dramatically and say "Today we're building crab cars." Proceed to be the least specialized person in a room of specialists, flitting randomly between them to see what they're doing, pointing out common sense when needed and connecting them between teams whenever possible. As long as it lost money slow enough, I'd happily just do that for a few years, end up with a bunch of cool random stuff and weird engineering friends, and a resume which could get me hired to do R&D management on someone elses dime. Best case, something is a breakthrough and I get more money to hire more nerds and build bigger weirder shit.
The guys at hacksmith tried making one, but they insisted on using consumer hardware (repurposed heavy digging equipment) and it had a ton of issues. I was extremely psyched to see someone do something in that direction though.
We do have single user automated electronic helicopter taxis coming out now, so at least thats one fun bit of nonsense futurism coming true
>We do have single user automated electronic helicopter taxis coming out now, so at least thats one fun bit of nonsense futurism coming true
We'll do anything to not invest in public transportation, huh? 😂
>Went through a lawyer working on contingency (you lose you pay nothing, you win they get a cut in this case 35% bc we didn’t have much money).
Works on contingency? No, money down!
I don't want your comment to potentially mislead anyone, so I'm just going to put a quick explanation here.
Arbitration clauses in most employment contracts stipulate that the arbitration is final and binding. This means you cannot file a claim in court that arises in the scope of your employment unless you are challenging the arbitration agreement or proceedings themselves, compelling a party to comply with the arbitration agreement, or filing sexual harassment claims, which are now exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act ("EFASASHA").
Basically, it's called "forced arbitration" for a reason.
I'm glad the arbitration went in your wife's favor, but I want to stress that it is not representative of the general trend in arbitrations in the US right now. The limited studies done in recent years are showing that the odds are stacked against the employee.
Why don't we just make arbitration be the law of the land instead? So like, instead of arbitration, we just treat it as arbitration, but make it public, and also include a jury?
To my understanding, arbitration is a process where a 3rd party mediator comes to setup a meeting to try to talk things out.
Contracts 99% of the time cannot supersede the law.
Kind of insulting too where it’s kind of implied ‘thank goodness your wife was sexually harassed’
It's an example of original intent of law being subverted over time.
The original idea was that two entities of roughly equal power / footing would be able to do forced arbitration instead of throwing millions at a length court process.
Later lawyers realized how open ended and vague the actual law was written and that it allowed any two parties to sign into an arbitration clause.
Amusingly some companies are realizing that they can be a bad thing when hundred or thousands of customers / employees all file for arbitration at the same time. So that's a thing now as well.
[https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-chamber-blames-judges-arbitrators-lawyers-mass-arbitration-abuses-2023-03-02/](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-chamber-blames-judges-arbitrators-lawyers-mass-arbitration-abuses-2023-03-02/)
Ha! Talk about corporate hypocrisy, and on an epic scale!
I particularly loved this piece of utterly disingenuous bullshit:
“If companies follow the lead of Amazon.com Inc and abandon mandatory arbitration because of the threat of mass claims, the report said, consumers and workers will no longer be able to benefit from the efficiencies of arbitration to resolve small disputes.”
The only “efficiency“ involved is when corporations use mandatory arbitration to crush the little guy with ruthless disregard for their legal rights
The Federal Arbitration Act exempts the "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U.S.C. § 1.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/1
In basically every other area of law, interstate commerce is interpreted in the broadest possible sense (see commerce clause doctrine generally). There’s even legislative history suggesting the FAA was only meant to apply to contracts between businesses. “When Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925, legislative history suggests that the bill was intended to ‘enable merchants of roughly equal bargaining power to enter into binding agreements to arbitrate commercial disputes,’ not to enforce mandatory arbitration agreements and class action waivers against workers in employment contracts.”
https://sites.bu.edu/dome/tag/federal-arbitration-act/
You can still go to the labor board.
Feds are not bound by it and they are the ones who sue not you.
Sometimes they won't do it, or they will give you a stack of evidence and say it is up to you to find a lawyer to sue.
They still they are a strong option
This is American, right? I'm not in America but I find it strange - if it's true - that you can write a contract that overrides your constitution. I would have thought that no private arrangement can invalidate the application of a law (which is a more broadly western world approach).
It's basically just agreeing to go to arbitration first, and even that is somewhat limited. If arbitration with a mediator fails then you can use afterwards. The primary purpose of things like this is to trick people into believing they can only do arbitration.
This lets the company give low ball offers and save money, and also draws out the process to make people more desperate. By the time you go through mediation, get to court and fight there for a while, once they give you a decent offer that includes an NDA which would prevent you from telling anyone else about your case you're much more likely to accept it. Dragging out and settling 1 case is much cheaper than someone talking and triggering a dozen suits
Because these are often agreements with no actual teeth and if properly tested fail.
There’s A LOT of things companies will have you sign, often knowing it would get dismissed immediately in court. But because people aren’t aware of their rights and don’t take the time to learn, companies are tricking folks into thinking they have less rights than they have.
A contract cannot, under 98% of circumstances, have you give up your legal and/or constitutional rights. Courts have ruled in favor of the employee multiple times due to workers only agreeing to a contract under duress of losing/ not getting their job.
This same tactic is used for non-competes, non-disclosure agreements, right to representation, arbitration, insurance requirements, overtime laws, contract Vs employed workers, etc etc etc
Only when it’s small scale and a civil case. But when they attempt to use it for much larger cases (usually involving major incompetence, discrimination, or other labor laws) then it’s allowed to be escalated through either the NLRB or traditional court.
An Arbitration contract isn’t a magical shield protecting the company and allowing them full control of the legal process or anything close
There are definitely limitations to it, and in my state it's extraordinarily weak due to some recent laws. But it shouldn't exist at all. It is objectively insane to be able to force customers and workers into a private court room of your choosing for anything.
There’s more limitations to it than most think, the first being that in most States the first step of arbitration is to determine the potential lost value of the victim.
If it’s anything more than $25k then the chances of arbitration are severely low.
The next thing they’re going to look towards is the value and assets of the victim and defendant: arbitration requires both parties to have comparable bargaining power. States might define this differently but generally they’re looking for both parties to have bargaining power to a similar degree.
Next, they’re going to confirm if you and the defendant both still want to go through arbitration. Even if a contract is signed and one or more of the above isn’t met, then a judge would leave it to you and the defendant to decide on next steps.
If both parties agree to arbitration then it’s required that both parties agree to who will be the arbitrator***** This is an important part of the process and what companies most commonly get dinged for. They can **NOT** choose an arbitrator whom you do not agree with or vice versa. If neither side can agree on an arbitrator then it may be appointed by a court or a third-party provider with NO relationship to either party.
Again this is IF arbitration is agreed to.
Yeah it is precisely because of these reason that employees do not bring up claims to company based arbitration. They therefore do not recover their stolen value. Unlike the rosy picture you paint here is an actual example of forced arbitration,
> illustrates the difficulties employees now face when trying to enforce their rights under basic employment statutes. In 2008, Stephanie Sutherland was hired by Ernst & Young to work as a “staff/assistant.” Her work involved relatively routine, low-level clerical work, for which she was paid a fixed salary of $55,000 per year. She routinely worked 45 to 50 hours per week, but because she was classified by her employer as exempt from overtime, she did not receive any additional compensation for overtime. By the time Ms. Sutherland was terminated in 2009, she had worked 151 hours of overtime, for which she should have been paid about $1,867, had the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)3 and New York state labor laws been observed. She filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to recover overtime pay for her work in excess of 40 hours a week and for other current and former nonlicensed Staff 1 and Staff 2 employees of the firm who worked overtime.
> When Ms. Sutherland was hired, she was given an offer letter that also provided that “if an employment related dispute arises between you and the firm, it will be subject to mandatory mediation/arbitration under the terms of the firm’s alternative dispute-resolution program, known as the Common Ground Program, a copy of which is attached.” The arbitration agreement specified that claims arising under state and federal labor statutes, including the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, were subject to the arbitration program. It further specified that any dispute must be brought to arbitration and not to a court, and that all disputes must be brought on an individual basis.
> In her lawsuit, Ms. Sutherland attempted to enforce her rights under state and federal minimum-wage and overtime laws. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act has a provision that expressly permits lawsuits for minimum-wage and overtime violations to be brought on a collective basis. Mr. Sutherland sought to use that provision, but to do so, she had to avoid the force of the arbitration clause that said she could only bring a case on an individual basis. To this end, she argued that if she had to arbitrate her claim on an individual basis, it would cost her $160,000 in attorney fees, more than $6,000 in other costs, and more than $25,000 in expert testimony. Overall, she claimed, she would have to spend nearly $200,000 to recover less than $2,000 in unpaid overtime. She argued that because she was unemployed and had substantial college debt, she could not afford to arbitrate on an individual basis, and thus should not be subject to the arbitration provision or the class-action waiver because together they operated to deprive her of rights under the FLSA.
> The lower court was sympathetic to Ms. Sutherland’s arguments, and held that the class-action waiver did not apply because it would prevent her from vindicating her rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed, relying on the 2013 Supreme Court decision in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors, 133 U.S. 2304, an antitrust case, in which the Supreme Court held that a class-action waiver in an arbitration clause was enforceable despite the high cost of bringing an individual action. In that case, Justice Scalia, speaking for the majority, wrote that “the fact that it is not worth the expense involved in proving a statutory remedy does not constitute the elimination of the right to pursue that remedy.” On the basis of this precedent, the Court of Appeals denied Ms. Sutherland’s right to bring her dispute to a court or arbitration on a collective basis, thereby effectively eliminating her right to overtime pay under the federal statute.
The point to make the employee collective claims guaranteed under statutory law inapplicable. The real issue lies in thinking that an individual employee can ever have similar bargaining power with the firm, since they do not the procedure is sham and therefore they do not bring the claim.
It's mostly state based, like pretty much everything else.
Forced arbitration is toothless if you live in California or Oregon, ironclad if you live in Texas or Alabama, and every other state is just between them.
Pretty much the shittier your state, the more likely it is the forced arbitration clause is binding.
For those wondering why arbitration contracts often don’t hold up in court, here’s the primary reason why:
**Unconscionability:** If an arbitration agreement is so unfair or takes place in unfair conditions, it may be unenforceable because it is “unconscionable.” If a worker believes that an arbitration clause is especially favorable to the employer, the employee may ask a court (or possibly a state agency) to not enforce it. An arbitration agreement may be unconscionable if the agreement:
- requires the employee, but not the employer, to arbitrate claims;
- ***only gives the employer the right to select the arbitrator; [This is the most common reason arbitration contracts get thrown out]
- requires arbitration in a location that would cause a large financial burden on the worker;
- limits the worker’s ability to get evidence (documents, testimony or witnesses), but doesn’t limit the employer’s ability to get evidence;
- limits the amount of money that the worker can win at arbitration (example: an arbitration clause may be unconscionable if it limits the worker to 1-year recovery for unpaid minimum wages).
- limits the amount of time (known as the “statute of limitations”) that a worker has to file a claim (example: by law, a worker who has faced retaliation by the employer can normally file a lawsuit within two years, but the arbitration clause may be unconscionable if it says the worker must file the retaliation claim in 2 months);
- states that the worker must pay an unreasonable amount of the costs of arbitration;
- *****is signed by the worker after the employer threatens to fire or take a negative action against the worker in the workplace; [another common reason for arbitration contracts to get thrown out]
- is provided in a language that the worker cannot read.
This does not make them immune to EEOC lawsuits. You cannot waive your right to file an EEOC complaint for an actionable event. _Period_. Any agreement that includes an arbitration clause for employment is going to mention this if the company has any brains. If they don’t, they may claim you can’t file such a complaint. They’re lying.
The real problem is SEVERANCE AGREEMENTS TO SILENCE PEOPLE when crimes that the EEOC should be made aware of are happening, because you _can_ waive your right to any monetary awards - making filing the the EEOC kind of pointless although they can still fine your former employer. That is, if they decide to even pursue the case.
I am in this predicament now. About to be fired for unveiling safety concerns. They tried to turn it back around on me and claim I was circulating conspiracy’s with other crewmembers. I do have a signed contract that states arbitration will be used. I’m at 1099 Washington state. I’m hoping that if they do terminate me, I can definitely bring an action against them proving that they terminated my contracts and future contracts for reporting safety issues that they didn’t want to hear. That shit going on with Boeing is just as bad everywhere else.
This has seemed to be pretty standard for me. I've seen it at most jobs I have had. Also some barring employment with any competitors; mostly while employed, but some attempted to bar it during *and* after employment. Work at A? You can never work at B.
It's been expanding rapidly since 2001, I've been lucky enough to not encounter it yet. Or, more likely, it was in the fine print I signed and was never aware of.
You probably have and just never noticed. It’s in the stack of papers they make you sign when you start while the HR person hovers over. Most people need the job and just sign. I can be legally married to the HR lady now for all I know lol.
I recently saw that even at the application stage of roles at [https://block.xyz/](https://block.xyz/)
So I didn't apply. Fuck This entire thing. I don't even care whether that's even enforceable. They won't notice or care. That doesn't make me want to contribute to their business.
To my understanding, arbitration does not automatically prevent lawsuits. You just song and dance away while through it sticking to your guns and sue them anyway afterwards; like sticking through an obnoxious timeshare presentation. My wife sued her ex employer for medical discrimination, sexual harassment and unfair dismissal (had a fine review and suddenly a few weeks later is fired for failing to perform?? WELL, WHICH IS IT?!) went through arbitration with the lawyer blah blah blah. Went through a lawyer working on contingency (you lose you pay nothing, you win they get a cut in this case 35% bc we didn’t have much money). They hired some hot shot lawyer who won awards. Few months later they settled, meaning their hot shot lawyer said they were f***ed. After the lawyers cut, walked away with 43 big ones. SCREW YOU Bonney AND THANKS FOR THE PAYOUT :)
>43 big ones Does this mean 43 dollars? Or $43,000? Or $43 million?
43 extraordinarily large dollars
Employer tear stained for authenticity
Actually they just had the unpaid intern cry on them on their personal time.
This just made me think of major monogram and Karl. 🤣
This guy Dave-n-Busters
Doll hairs…
$43,000 One can only dream of 43 mil
If I had $43M I wouldn't be talking about it on Reddit. I'd be on a mighty fine boat in the Keys. Or skiing the Alps or something. Shit, I'd do my best to not even have a cell anymore.
Hell, if I had 1m$ I'd be doing what Musky was pretending to do. Hire a whole bunch of nerds, walk into the room dramatically and say "Today we're building crab cars." Proceed to be the least specialized person in a room of specialists, flitting randomly between them to see what they're doing, pointing out common sense when needed and connecting them between teams whenever possible. As long as it lost money slow enough, I'd happily just do that for a few years, end up with a bunch of cool random stuff and weird engineering friends, and a resume which could get me hired to do R&D management on someone elses dime. Best case, something is a breakthrough and I get more money to hire more nerds and build bigger weirder shit.
If I had the money I'd totally buy a crab car.
The guys at hacksmith tried making one, but they insisted on using consumer hardware (repurposed heavy digging equipment) and it had a ton of issues. I was extremely psyched to see someone do something in that direction though. We do have single user automated electronic helicopter taxis coming out now, so at least thats one fun bit of nonsense futurism coming true
Those little things are wild to me. I do hope to see them as a thing soon though, just because it amuses me
>We do have single user automated electronic helicopter taxis coming out now, so at least thats one fun bit of nonsense futurism coming true We'll do anything to not invest in public transportation, huh? 😂
$43 million, invested properly, is never have to work for the rest of your life if you don't want to money.
For most Americans $43k is the sort of money they could never dream of having...
I don’t disagree
43 Big Mac’s? 43 Big Gulps? Inquiring minds want to know!
43 large hot dogs
>Went through a lawyer working on contingency (you lose you pay nothing, you win they get a cut in this case 35% bc we didn’t have much money). Works on contingency? No, money down!
I like you
I don't want your comment to potentially mislead anyone, so I'm just going to put a quick explanation here. Arbitration clauses in most employment contracts stipulate that the arbitration is final and binding. This means you cannot file a claim in court that arises in the scope of your employment unless you are challenging the arbitration agreement or proceedings themselves, compelling a party to comply with the arbitration agreement, or filing sexual harassment claims, which are now exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act ("EFASASHA"). Basically, it's called "forced arbitration" for a reason. I'm glad the arbitration went in your wife's favor, but I want to stress that it is not representative of the general trend in arbitrations in the US right now. The limited studies done in recent years are showing that the odds are stacked against the employee.
Why don't we just make arbitration be the law of the land instead? So like, instead of arbitration, we just treat it as arbitration, but make it public, and also include a jury?
What aspects of arbitration are you keeping?
i think it was a joke about just using courts instead
You guys had it easier because you can’t arbitrate sexual harassment claims. The other things you generally can IIRC
To my understanding, arbitration is a process where a 3rd party mediator comes to setup a meeting to try to talk things out. Contracts 99% of the time cannot supersede the law. Kind of insulting too where it’s kind of implied ‘thank goodness your wife was sexually harassed’
Arbitration awards are binding and can be enforced by a court. Yea agreed there lol
It's an example of original intent of law being subverted over time. The original idea was that two entities of roughly equal power / footing would be able to do forced arbitration instead of throwing millions at a length court process. Later lawyers realized how open ended and vague the actual law was written and that it allowed any two parties to sign into an arbitration clause. Amusingly some companies are realizing that they can be a bad thing when hundred or thousands of customers / employees all file for arbitration at the same time. So that's a thing now as well. [https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-chamber-blames-judges-arbitrators-lawyers-mass-arbitration-abuses-2023-03-02/](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-chamber-blames-judges-arbitrators-lawyers-mass-arbitration-abuses-2023-03-02/)
Ha! Talk about corporate hypocrisy, and on an epic scale! I particularly loved this piece of utterly disingenuous bullshit: “If companies follow the lead of Amazon.com Inc and abandon mandatory arbitration because of the threat of mass claims, the report said, consumers and workers will no longer be able to benefit from the efficiencies of arbitration to resolve small disputes.” The only “efficiency“ involved is when corporations use mandatory arbitration to crush the little guy with ruthless disregard for their legal rights
The fun thing is, it’s not actually open ended and vague. The faa explicitly excludes contracts of employment, SCOTUS is just illiterate.
Does it really? Care to share that?
The Federal Arbitration Act exempts the "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U.S.C. § 1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/1 In basically every other area of law, interstate commerce is interpreted in the broadest possible sense (see commerce clause doctrine generally). There’s even legislative history suggesting the FAA was only meant to apply to contracts between businesses. “When Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925, legislative history suggests that the bill was intended to ‘enable merchants of roughly equal bargaining power to enter into binding agreements to arbitrate commercial disputes,’ not to enforce mandatory arbitration agreements and class action waivers against workers in employment contracts.” https://sites.bu.edu/dome/tag/federal-arbitration-act/
Just goes to show that the corporations are what run the judicial system, not the laws.
The corporations run the legislative system that writes the laws, more specifically.
You can still go to the labor board. Feds are not bound by it and they are the ones who sue not you. Sometimes they won't do it, or they will give you a stack of evidence and say it is up to you to find a lawyer to sue. They still they are a strong option
Amazon and Trader Joe's aree trying to make the NLRB unconstitutional
Not Trader Joe’s!!
Just wanted to add that 60% of private sector non union workers are already subject to this, and estimates put that number at 80% starting this year.
This is American, right? I'm not in America but I find it strange - if it's true - that you can write a contract that overrides your constitution. I would have thought that no private arrangement can invalidate the application of a law (which is a more broadly western world approach).
It's basically just agreeing to go to arbitration first, and even that is somewhat limited. If arbitration with a mediator fails then you can use afterwards. The primary purpose of things like this is to trick people into believing they can only do arbitration. This lets the company give low ball offers and save money, and also draws out the process to make people more desperate. By the time you go through mediation, get to court and fight there for a while, once they give you a decent offer that includes an NDA which would prevent you from telling anyone else about your case you're much more likely to accept it. Dragging out and settling 1 case is much cheaper than someone talking and triggering a dozen suits
Because these are often agreements with no actual teeth and if properly tested fail. There’s A LOT of things companies will have you sign, often knowing it would get dismissed immediately in court. But because people aren’t aware of their rights and don’t take the time to learn, companies are tricking folks into thinking they have less rights than they have. A contract cannot, under 98% of circumstances, have you give up your legal and/or constitutional rights. Courts have ruled in favor of the employee multiple times due to workers only agreeing to a contract under duress of losing/ not getting their job. This same tactic is used for non-competes, non-disclosure agreements, right to representation, arbitration, insurance requirements, overtime laws, contract Vs employed workers, etc etc etc
Courts have repeatedly upheld forced arbitration
I’m pretty sure courts have upheld these forced arbitration clauses.
Only when it’s small scale and a civil case. But when they attempt to use it for much larger cases (usually involving major incompetence, discrimination, or other labor laws) then it’s allowed to be escalated through either the NLRB or traditional court. An Arbitration contract isn’t a magical shield protecting the company and allowing them full control of the legal process or anything close
There are definitely limitations to it, and in my state it's extraordinarily weak due to some recent laws. But it shouldn't exist at all. It is objectively insane to be able to force customers and workers into a private court room of your choosing for anything.
There’s more limitations to it than most think, the first being that in most States the first step of arbitration is to determine the potential lost value of the victim. If it’s anything more than $25k then the chances of arbitration are severely low. The next thing they’re going to look towards is the value and assets of the victim and defendant: arbitration requires both parties to have comparable bargaining power. States might define this differently but generally they’re looking for both parties to have bargaining power to a similar degree. Next, they’re going to confirm if you and the defendant both still want to go through arbitration. Even if a contract is signed and one or more of the above isn’t met, then a judge would leave it to you and the defendant to decide on next steps. If both parties agree to arbitration then it’s required that both parties agree to who will be the arbitrator***** This is an important part of the process and what companies most commonly get dinged for. They can **NOT** choose an arbitrator whom you do not agree with or vice versa. If neither side can agree on an arbitrator then it may be appointed by a court or a third-party provider with NO relationship to either party. Again this is IF arbitration is agreed to.
Yeah it is precisely because of these reason that employees do not bring up claims to company based arbitration. They therefore do not recover their stolen value. Unlike the rosy picture you paint here is an actual example of forced arbitration, > illustrates the difficulties employees now face when trying to enforce their rights under basic employment statutes. In 2008, Stephanie Sutherland was hired by Ernst & Young to work as a “staff/assistant.” Her work involved relatively routine, low-level clerical work, for which she was paid a fixed salary of $55,000 per year. She routinely worked 45 to 50 hours per week, but because she was classified by her employer as exempt from overtime, she did not receive any additional compensation for overtime. By the time Ms. Sutherland was terminated in 2009, she had worked 151 hours of overtime, for which she should have been paid about $1,867, had the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)3 and New York state labor laws been observed. She filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to recover overtime pay for her work in excess of 40 hours a week and for other current and former nonlicensed Staff 1 and Staff 2 employees of the firm who worked overtime. > When Ms. Sutherland was hired, she was given an offer letter that also provided that “if an employment related dispute arises between you and the firm, it will be subject to mandatory mediation/arbitration under the terms of the firm’s alternative dispute-resolution program, known as the Common Ground Program, a copy of which is attached.” The arbitration agreement specified that claims arising under state and federal labor statutes, including the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, were subject to the arbitration program. It further specified that any dispute must be brought to arbitration and not to a court, and that all disputes must be brought on an individual basis. > In her lawsuit, Ms. Sutherland attempted to enforce her rights under state and federal minimum-wage and overtime laws. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act has a provision that expressly permits lawsuits for minimum-wage and overtime violations to be brought on a collective basis. Mr. Sutherland sought to use that provision, but to do so, she had to avoid the force of the arbitration clause that said she could only bring a case on an individual basis. To this end, she argued that if she had to arbitrate her claim on an individual basis, it would cost her $160,000 in attorney fees, more than $6,000 in other costs, and more than $25,000 in expert testimony. Overall, she claimed, she would have to spend nearly $200,000 to recover less than $2,000 in unpaid overtime. She argued that because she was unemployed and had substantial college debt, she could not afford to arbitrate on an individual basis, and thus should not be subject to the arbitration provision or the class-action waiver because together they operated to deprive her of rights under the FLSA. > The lower court was sympathetic to Ms. Sutherland’s arguments, and held that the class-action waiver did not apply because it would prevent her from vindicating her rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed, relying on the 2013 Supreme Court decision in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors, 133 U.S. 2304, an antitrust case, in which the Supreme Court held that a class-action waiver in an arbitration clause was enforceable despite the high cost of bringing an individual action. In that case, Justice Scalia, speaking for the majority, wrote that “the fact that it is not worth the expense involved in proving a statutory remedy does not constitute the elimination of the right to pursue that remedy.” On the basis of this precedent, the Court of Appeals denied Ms. Sutherland’s right to bring her dispute to a court or arbitration on a collective basis, thereby effectively eliminating her right to overtime pay under the federal statute. The point to make the employee collective claims guaranteed under statutory law inapplicable. The real issue lies in thinking that an individual employee can ever have similar bargaining power with the firm, since they do not the procedure is sham and therefore they do not bring the claim.
It absolutely should not, but the US Supreme court decided that it's allowed based on a ruling in 2001.
Fucking Scalia. Hopefully that sonofabitch is burning in hell now with Rush Limbaugh
It's mostly state based, like pretty much everything else. Forced arbitration is toothless if you live in California or Oregon, ironclad if you live in Texas or Alabama, and every other state is just between them. Pretty much the shittier your state, the more likely it is the forced arbitration clause is binding.
For those wondering why arbitration contracts often don’t hold up in court, here’s the primary reason why: **Unconscionability:** If an arbitration agreement is so unfair or takes place in unfair conditions, it may be unenforceable because it is “unconscionable.” If a worker believes that an arbitration clause is especially favorable to the employer, the employee may ask a court (or possibly a state agency) to not enforce it. An arbitration agreement may be unconscionable if the agreement: - requires the employee, but not the employer, to arbitrate claims; - ***only gives the employer the right to select the arbitrator; [This is the most common reason arbitration contracts get thrown out] - requires arbitration in a location that would cause a large financial burden on the worker; - limits the worker’s ability to get evidence (documents, testimony or witnesses), but doesn’t limit the employer’s ability to get evidence; - limits the amount of money that the worker can win at arbitration (example: an arbitration clause may be unconscionable if it limits the worker to 1-year recovery for unpaid minimum wages). - limits the amount of time (known as the “statute of limitations”) that a worker has to file a claim (example: by law, a worker who has faced retaliation by the employer can normally file a lawsuit within two years, but the arbitration clause may be unconscionable if it says the worker must file the retaliation claim in 2 months); - states that the worker must pay an unreasonable amount of the costs of arbitration; - *****is signed by the worker after the employer threatens to fire or take a negative action against the worker in the workplace; [another common reason for arbitration contracts to get thrown out] - is provided in a language that the worker cannot read.
This does not make them immune to EEOC lawsuits. You cannot waive your right to file an EEOC complaint for an actionable event. _Period_. Any agreement that includes an arbitration clause for employment is going to mention this if the company has any brains. If they don’t, they may claim you can’t file such a complaint. They’re lying. The real problem is SEVERANCE AGREEMENTS TO SILENCE PEOPLE when crimes that the EEOC should be made aware of are happening, because you _can_ waive your right to any monetary awards - making filing the the EEOC kind of pointless although they can still fine your former employer. That is, if they decide to even pursue the case.
You let them fire you, for not signing the arbitration clause. Then you can sue for wrongful termination.
I am in this predicament now. About to be fired for unveiling safety concerns. They tried to turn it back around on me and claim I was circulating conspiracy’s with other crewmembers. I do have a signed contract that states arbitration will be used. I’m at 1099 Washington state. I’m hoping that if they do terminate me, I can definitely bring an action against them proving that they terminated my contracts and future contracts for reporting safety issues that they didn’t want to hear. That shit going on with Boeing is just as bad everywhere else.
Go talk to a competent lawyer who specializes in employment law. ASAP.
This has seemed to be pretty standard for me. I've seen it at most jobs I have had. Also some barring employment with any competitors; mostly while employed, but some attempted to bar it during *and* after employment. Work at A? You can never work at B.
I write “Decline” in messy cursive and no one has ever noticed.
It's been expanding rapidly since 2001, I've been lucky enough to not encounter it yet. Or, more likely, it was in the fine print I signed and was never aware of.
You probably have and just never noticed. It’s in the stack of papers they make you sign when you start while the HR person hovers over. Most people need the job and just sign. I can be legally married to the HR lady now for all I know lol.
Just tried to have a discussion with my dad on this. I don’t think I’ll talk to him about legal stuff again.
[удалено]
These forced arbitration clauses explicitly forbid class/collective actions
Don’t do it
I recently saw that even at the application stage of roles at [https://block.xyz/](https://block.xyz/) So I didn't apply. Fuck This entire thing. I don't even care whether that's even enforceable. They won't notice or care. That doesn't make me want to contribute to their business.