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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.
The fact that union shops screw you in one way has no bearing on the finding that non-union workplaces screw you in another way.
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.