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More Than Half of American Workers Can't Sue Their Employer (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the past two years, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Oracle have faced various high-profile lawsuits related to their employment practices. And while those cases generated headlines, workers in almost every sector sue their bosses over emotional abuse, unpaid wages, and discrimination. The ability to sue over wrongful treatment at work is essential to the balance of bargaining power between employer and employee. Unfortunately, more than half of non-union, privately employed Americans -- some 60 million people -- have signed away this right. They are instead beholden to a process known as arbitration. Signing a mandatory arbitration agreement is theoretically voluntary, but refusing to do so can cost a candidate their job offer. Once signed, the agreement strips the employee of the right to take her employer to court for unfairly low pay, termination because of pregnancy, race-based discrimination, loss of paternity or maternity leave, and much more. According to a study published this week by Alexander Colvin of Cornell, more than half (54%) of private, non-unionized workplaces have mandatory arbitration procedures. For larger companies (over 1,000 workers), that jumps to 65%. By contrast, in 2003 Colvin found that just 14% of companies had arbitration agreements.
Another US-invented oxymoron: "Right To Work" laws are anything but. At least all that FREEDOM! balances it out though, no?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
It's the only way to get this resolved.
Wow. The "anonymous reader" who published this really doesn't know what they're talking about. Please don't believe this rubbish.
You can't grab your employees by the pussy if they can turn around and sue you.
#MAGA
If you donâ(TM)t like it start your own company or get the FUCK out! MAGA!
You should never be able to sign away your rights. This is a terrible precedent. To me, that's part of the definition of what a right is. Something that is by definition yours and cannot be taken away. Inviolable. I just don't understand how you can be made to sign a piece of paper that takes away some of the things that are the absolute bedrock of our country.
Arbitration is a scourge designed to deny you your legal rights. It only works properly when there isn't already a power imbalance.
Many Americans are also government works at some level. I am one of them. Although I don't have a reason to sue my employer, it would be difficult to sue for damages. I could sue, but sovereign immunity limits my ability to do so. In my case, the state legislature would have to authorize the lawsuit before I could collect any damages. Even when there are serious damages, it can be difficult to sue the government for damages. An example, not related to employment, was the discussion that Penn State might attempt (despite being a legally dubious claim for technical reasons) to claim sovereign immunity to avoid paying out damages for the Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal. These arbitration clauses are often unfair, but it's hardly the only way that employers avoid having to pay out damages for wrongdoing.
You know Nancy Reagan wasn't really talking about drugs, don't you? I mean, subjectively she was, but she was actually giving you a possible strategy for nearly everything in life.
We are constantly given things to sign, and you're expected to comply instead of reading and thinking. But if you say no and don't sign, what's the worst that can happen? You don't get that job, which you didn't want anyway, since its terms were so egregious? That's not a bad thing.
If someone asks you to sign a contract saying you promise to slice off your balls with a dull, rusty razor, JUST SAY NO. Always hold out for a clean sharp one.
The U.S. really needs a law that makes it illegal to restrict avenues of legal recourse within any contract (whether it be explicit or implicit such as a TOS). It should be illegal to have "can't sue us no matter what!" clauses. It's an abuse that is way out of hand. You can't own a house, have a job, buy food, buy a car or pretty much any other necessity without dealing with some scummy company that wants you to sign away your legal rights to do business with them.
You can still sue your employer in public courts even if you signed a arbitration agreement under certain cases. Clickbait.
Yes even employers deserve rights, and they didn't hold a gun to your head to sign that contract. If you don't like it, you are free to move to China.
I can't even remember if I signed off on a waiver. Do you think your HR department kept a copy? Ideally, it would have been scanned into an archival system immediately.
Now, this doesn't address the immorality of the whole issue, but... arbitration? I've been at my employer for over 10 years. You sure you have proof of that?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I was unaware that you could sign anything that would allow somebody else to break the law.
Don't bother going to court... just file a complaint with regional employment services and let them do all of that for you.
One of my kids did this once, when an employer he had at the time wasn't paying fair wages (he was effectively making people work for about half to three-quarters of what minimum wage was). It took my son a while to get up the courage to do this, and a fair amount of prodding from my wife and myself, because he was really afraid of losing his job, but after he did, things improved a lot where he worked within just a couple of months. Additionally, he received a whole ton of back pay that he was entitled to from the previous year and a half, going back to when he started working there. Also, it's my understanding that the employer did not know which employee had field the complaint with the government.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In US law, what rights can be forfeited?
Can the President of the United States forfeit his authority to wage war, to say Congress under a 'contract.'
Assuming no.
Why can people forfeit rights, such as speech for example.. Often people un-explicitly forfeit rights.. Like the right to remain silent, etc..
Is there a legal metric used to determine what, say constitutionally derived, rights can be forfeited or no?
I've always wondered this..
So ask the court to find the arbitration clause nonbinding, or that a true meeting of the minds never really took place. If you really want to go to court, there's nothing really stopping you.
Is this an actual news story or just union sponsored propaganda? Many instances in the summary of "non union" yet no mention how with union contracts, any grievances you have go through the union representatives and you also do not have a right to sue the union for any issues you have with how they represent you.
I keep hearing that phrase and it infuriates me. If your employer comes to you with one of these contracts you sign it. And it's been upheld by law since congress passed the Mandatory Arbitration Law this last year (and it was upheld by the Supreme Court). Sure, I can get another job, and likely get another one of these contracts put in my face.
And no, I can't just start my own business. If you don't have capital you can't do that. Most people need money coming in. Heck, 60-80% of us live paycheck to paycheck (depending on how you run the numbers).
And that's before we talk about all decisions made for you. Like our car based transportation system that was built in the 40s, 50 & 60s. Or our healthcare system that was built during WWII. Or if you're under 30 our college system. Or hell your parents.
Ever year I get fewer and fewer choices and get boxed in again and again. Meanwhile the number of times somebody says that stupid phrase goes up. Go figure.
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Players have THE RIGHT to take a knee.
Don't like it? GTFO fucker
right guys?? ...
I agree, but what does that have to do with NFL owners sticking taxpayers with the cost of new stadiums?
There's another name for a government that enforces a corporatist system. Take a guess what it is? It's real popular on the streets nowadays.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Actually.... Congress is the one with the right to declare war. Interestingly enough Congress has signed their right away to the president in certain circumstances.
In civilized countries, the contracts can state whatever they like, but clauses like that are deemed illegal and stripped of the contract automatically.
That is why, on such contracts there is normally a clause that states something on the lines of:
"If any clause is deemed unenforceable, that clause should be considered stripped of the contract and not affect any of the other remaining clauses."
This is to protect the maximum integrity of the contract.
Besides, you can't waive legal rights whatsoever. It is in the law for a reason.
I remember about a month after the case was decided that allowed it we were brought forms and told that if they weren't signed that week would be your last (2 days or so notice). Unlike many here, I do not work in tech. The balance of power between employee and employer is too far out of sync for any true meeting of the minds. It is a ton easier for the employer to make a change than the employee.
Repeat after me:
You can't sign away a right.
If you can, it was never a right.
In any civilised country, this stuff just renders the clause null and void if ever challenged, and potentially large tracts of surrounding legalese too.
"This does not affect your statutory rights" is an age-old and totally redundant piece of legalese. Because NOTHING affects your statutory rights, whether they say it or not.
If the US are so daft as to allow "rights" to be signed away, they deserve everything they get from not challenging it from day one.
P.S. Extrapolate the consequences. If you can sign away a right, you can sign away "the right to remain silent". Not just be asked to talk, but actually REMOVE THE ABILITY for you to remain silent. The right to free speech. The right to a private life.
If you can sign away a right, any right, that right doesn't exist as a right, and likely none of the other things called that do either.
Your "entrepreneurs" will be taking it up the ass from me bucko!
Low unemployment, high payment, high legal protection of work.
You can't have those three together, ever.
As long as the population of people with the required skills is plentiful and the job opportunities are scarce, things will always be this way. We are overpopulated, divided, and pretty much collectively a bunch of wimps. Things were better when there were less people around and they were tough and angry enough to band together and demand to have their rights respected. There needs to be a national movement towards unions. Otherwise we are stuck with the problem.
Uber fired Levandoski for breaking his employment contract through exercising his fifth amendment rights.
That sure sounds like signing away the right to remain silent
but I'm curious since you got modded up. What else would you call corporatism except, well, corporatism?
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Congress declares war and passes funding for war.
The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America wages war, regardless of formal declaration or funding.
While the assertion at the start of this article may be technically true, nevertheless, I believe it contains or embodies a logical fallacy. See if you agree.
The DISCERNING reader will note they carefully didn't claim that more than half of American workers have no ability to seek redress against their employers.
This is because that would be LYING. You see, mandatory arbitration does NOT strip employees of the ability to seek justice when they feel they've been wronged in some way. It just means it goes to a process called arbitration.
There is no concrete evidence that arbitration is biased towards the employer, or whoever has the bigger team of lawyers. Indeed, quite the opposite.
So why make a fuss about this? Who on earth would be upset that courts AREN'T being tied up hearing disputes that COULD be more easily resolved through an alternative process?
LAWYERS.
That's who's bitching and whining and complaining about this, and hopes to convince you of a suggested notion, (the one the author would LIKE you to believe, but can't actually state because then someone like me could point this out and say, LIAR!) that there's something WRONG with this situation.
Truth is, every time a court is in session, there is a winner, and a loser. Trouble is, the winner is ALWAYS, INVARIABLY, and WITHOUT FAIL, a lawyer. The loser is anyone who isn't a lawyer. Sometimes, the people who are on the winning side, the victorious lawyer's client, shares in the winnings. But it's like thinking you can gamble in a casino and win. You might win some of the time, and sometimes you may feel you're on a winning STREAK... but in the end, you lose. You ALWAYS lose in the end, because the HOUSE always WINS. So if you only go into one casino in your life, place ONE bet and win, and walk out with your winnings and never set foot in another casino again, you may think you've defied the rules, and beat the house. Sure... maybe you did, but you're part of a bigger category of people known in the industries as "marks" or "suckers," and your CATEGORY will always lose. At best, you could be said to be gambling against the other marks, and the casinos, as the facilitator of the gambling, keeps a cut of all the winnings.
You'd be better off if instead getting together with all the other gamblers, putting your money in a giant bank account, and earning INTEREST, which would cut the casino out completely. Sure, no one would get that big, exciting payoff, but in the end, each of you would receive MORE money, on balance, than all of you together if you each individually went to gamble it one by one.
Arbitration works the same way. When you file a LAWSUIT, you think you're suing each other, and that it's people versus 'group-people,' (corporations) and so-on, but you're really fighting, (nonlawyers as a group,) against the house as it were, against lawyers, (as a group,) and guess who always wins? (See the above if you're not clear on this point now.)
What's expressed in this article and every story like it, is not materially different from if you saw an ad written by casino owners, pointing out that by sticking your money in (ugh...) low-risk, high-odds-of-getting-your-money-back-and-more investments, savings accounts, certificates of deposit and the like, your life won't be as potentially exciting.
Yeah. Fuck that shit. I like the idea of arbitration, because I believe parasitism is BAD. I'm not calling ALL lawyers parasites, just ... the vast majority. As the saying goes, it's the rotten million who spoil it for the other five. Or something like that.
I think this is not only a weird and new way to think of rights, but it's a bad one, because it makes rights meaningless. If we were to use your concept of rights, then not a single person in the world would have any rights at all. Rights wouldn't exist.
That's a useless way to define something. It's better to define rights in a way that some can exist, so that the word actually has real-world meaning instead of being some theoretical ideal that no person will ever enjoy.
By having rights be a thing that rightsholders can sacrifice, or trade to one another, you'll have many situations where rights are a real thing and are meaningful. (And bonus: you start speaking the same language as everyone else!)
Within the mainstream concept of rights, I can have the right to possess the money that's in my pocket, and you can have the right to possess a widget that you made, and you and I can trade money-for-widget. But by your concept of rights, no person can own anything since owning something means you're not allowed to trade it!
Within the mainstream concept of rights, someone can have the right to live, and also the right to die. (Though some people would deny the second right, they'd still at least acknowledge that the language allows it to make sense.) But by your idea of rights, you can't have the right to live and die, since exercising one right always infringes the other!
You should rethink rights.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Lets talk about how this really works.
You are free to be concerned about whether people really have choice when it comes to arbitration and employment. That is a whole other conversation.
But being obligated to arbitrate does NOT mean that you cannot bring a legal proceeding against your employer to make them follow the law. It means that legal proceeding will happen in arbitration, not at the courthouse. The rules are different and the decision maker is different. But, arbitration can and does result in decisions against the employer. I've signed arbitration awards requiring an employer to pay punitive damages. I've signed arbitration awards requiring employers to pay more than $1 million.
Only a small percentage of civil cases actually go to trial. Something like 95% of all cases are either dismissed by the courts or settle before trial. In arbitration that statistic is flipped. In my own cases, probably 90% of all the arbitration cases I work on, actually go to a final hearing. Few settle or are dismissed before the trial.
I am aware of several well done studies that looked at comparable groups of cases - some in the court house, some in arbitration. The main difference was time to trial was shorter in arbitration, and attorneys' fees were lower (for everyone) in arbitration But, looking at large groups of cases, the win/loss ratio for plaintiffs was about the same.
Arbitration is not exactly the same as trying a case at the courthouse. The process is different. But, I know that my professional peers who are arbitrators care deeply about getting it right - deciding the case correctly under the law, and under the facts that were presented.
Arbitrators are chosen case by case. All parties in the case have an equal hand in selecting the arbitrator, and have a chance to object to a potential arbitrator. Arbitrators make very extensive disclosures about any potential conflicts of interest.
Given the way arbitration works, if I do a crappy job on today's arbitration - that means less chance that I will be selected again. The ONLY way I get the opportunity to serve as arbitrator in a future case, is to play it straight down the middle, decide the case strictly on the facts and the law, and explain myself in a properly written decision. Any arbitrator who gets a reputation for shoddy work or favoring one side or the other, quickly ends up with no mores cases to work on.
Thoughtful, intelligent and rational people can disagree on whether arbitration in employment matters is a good thing. But, the usual complaints leveled at arbitration are off the mark.
Please note that this has been piped through 'tr [A-Z] [a-z]' to appease your input filter. Now:
i herd a voice called #moo.
it said to me this: donald fucking trump!
i mean: donald fucking trump!
is worse than donald duck on acid.
donald fucking trump!
if the donald who is not a duck,
and would lose to a duck
in an intellectual pissing contest
can get into the electoral race,
let alone win the fucking thing.
# donald fucking trump!!!!
america is mostly insane.
america has become the world's loony bin
the dollar has no substantial value
the banking system is a fraud
if it had substance then it must
have a quantum wave function
in the sense of the quantum mechanics
who knows how to prove that dollars
are actually real?
does donald the fucking dip shit trump????
sort your fucking country out soon please.
all the best,
the voice of the #moo
for fucks sake: these total dip shits
would elect a complete and utter numpty
like donald fucking trump and
to make it worse still
put a creature like the hillary thing
as a make shift fake paper opponent
to try and make trumps engineered victory
look like it might be midly legit
donald fucking trump!
anything with physical substance must obey physics
physics accepts quantum mechanics postulates
those postulates require systems to have wavefunctions
anything inside that system sees it quantised
anything outside that system sees it continuous
get your fucking heads going pretty please!
donald fucking trump!
" Once signed, the agreement strips the employee of the right to take her employer to court for unfairly low pay, termination because of pregnancy, race-based discrimination, loss of paternity or maternity leave,"
Three of those 4 cases are related to women's rights. And as a male I strongly support them, because I think these are very reasonable things. Why aren't feminists fighting against this but rather fighting stupid made-up problems?
Hey genius, the arbiter **is** a lawyer, and he is hired by **the company**.
Do you see where this is headed, genius? THEIR lawyer, not yours (because you don't have one) decides the outcome.
Nor can you ask someone to sign away their rights - well - not with the force of law.
Two attorney friends of mine explained this to me - they said "go ahead and sign non-competes, contracts with arbitration clauses, and insurance policies requiring lawsuit threshold".
None have the force of law and none prevent you from exercising your right to bring a civil case against, well anyone or any entity.
A judge might recommend arbitration anyway - not because of the contract you signed, but because the court's docket is so full, you might never get your day in court.
Simply make arbitration illegal and require a full court action for every case. Oops, I forgot, America can not afford courts.
... prohibited in certain provinces in Canada.
This has been challenged in Canadian court several times. I remember reading a judgement handed down by a judge, where he stated (paraphrased loosely) that mandatory arbitration "was against the public good"... or something like that... and allowed class action.
People can't just sign away their rights.
And corporations can't privatize the judicial system.
It's as simple as that really.
Congress passed a law making Mandatory Arbitration legally binding and SCOTUS upheld it. At this point if you want that to change you're going to have to vote people into office who will change it. That means two things:
a. Voting in your primary.
b. Voting for left leaning candidates. Yeah. I said it. Right wing politics hold that personal freedom trumps all. And that means you're free to enter into whatever contract you want. Hence Mandatory Arbitration.
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we enshrined them in laws. Our Congress passed a law making Mandatory Arbitration legally binding and our Supreme Court upheld it.
Don't get too comfy over there though. You're ruling class is watching us and taking notes.
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Funny thing about Right-to-Work. It is a term that was market-tested to be most acceptable. What it actually does is compel unions to represent workers who are not members and pay no dues. I like to think of it as slavery.
One major role of unions is to negotiate contracts on behalf of workers. When a majority of workers decide that they no longer want to pay dues, per Right-to-Work, the union dissolves. Without a party to negotiate with, management can simply include anything that they want in an offer of employment. That includes an arbitration clause.
One employer offered me a job with terms stating that they could subject my credit to unlimited checks and perform background checks in an unlimited fashion. I walked, but some suckers must have signed.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Wow. Just wow.
It kinda makes sense that a lot of work laws around here include the phrase "there is no effective way to waive this right". Meaning your employer can write whatever bullshit he wants to make up in a contract but it's void. This includes crap like this, non-compete clauses broad enough to make you unemployable, work hours and many other things that we take for granted.
Guess the idiots thinking that "we should have more freedoms in our work contracts" should take a lesson from across the pond.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the moderation as flamebait is totally unjustified, so I modded it up again, reported this case to the admin, and submitted this comment as AC.
I myself hate it when I'm moderated out of my karma by some moderator with abusive tendencies, so that's why I did this.
It's not that bad yet. In 2027, to acquire any job, you will need to sign an indenture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H contract that you shall work for you master^H^H^H^H^H^H boss for a certain term, that he shall decide how much free time you have and how and where you shall spend it, what shall you eat, what corporal punishments you shall receive and so on. Any disagreement you might have will be reviewed and acted upon by him, as well.
P.S. And in 2227, hopefully, a new Abraham Lincoln will emerge.
And fans have THE RIGHT to turn our backs on them.
Congress declares war
Technically true, but there are two facts that make this a moot point.
1) The US stopped "declaring war" in a Constitutional sense quite a long time ago. If I remember correctly, the last time we declared war was WW2.
2) Congress has handed the ability to initiate hostilities to the Presidency. In this, they've abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities and made the President effectively the one who declares war.
pregnancy, race-based discrimination, loss of paternity or maternity leave
depending on your state pregnancy and taking leave are protected by law and race based discrimination is under a federally protected class so can be sued for in every state regardless of what you sign. Also you can sue your employer for forcibly pressuring you to sign a document that is attempting to supersede federally protected civil rights... so there is that. Employers have a lot of leeway in a lot of things but still have to adhere to the law.
Gee, I sure do like the fact that I can negotiate when I get a new job. I never sign arbitration clauses or indemnity clauses as they are presented. At very least I'll strike parts I don't want out and initial them. Usually the lawyer gives me a call if the company wants me bad enough or if they don't, well I don't want to work for them anyway if that's how they deal.
But I can make that negotiation. I think in the US they should be incapable of signing away that right. It should be codified in law. That's just silly.
As a college student, I worked for Bradlee's Dept. Store in the Northeast (no longer in business). The clerks there were UFCW too. Nothing like you describe ever happened. Dues were taken out, but for that we got a Union rep who visited us regularly, a union that represented us appropriately when the contract was ending and lots of rules that made working a retail job somewhat more bearable. What people don't realize is that the UFCW, or other unions like AFSCME, are just umbrella organizations for the chapters. Like chain restaurants, some locations are better than others. Some have shitty management and surly servers, others run like clockwork.
If your union local doesn't work, don't sit around and bitch about it. YOU are the union, so make some noise, run for shop steward, attend the meetings and if you are lucky enough to have a regular visit by their reps, TALK TO THEM and let them know you are active in your own well being on the job.
And one more thing: The right to take advantage of something OTHERS ARE PAYING FOR is legalized theft, IMO. This is all done to further drive wedges between working people because The Man knows he is powerless if we band together for ourselves.