Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts Barring Class Actions (nytimes.com) 343
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that companies can use arbitration clauses in employment contracts to prohibit workers from banding together to take legal action over workplace issues. From a report: The vote was 5 to 4, with the court's more conservative justices in the majority. The court's decision could affect some 25 million employment contracts. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the court's conclusion was dictated by a federal law favoring arbitration and the court's precedents. If workers were allowed to band together to press their claims, he wrote, "the virtues Congress originally saw in arbitration, its speed and simplicity and inexpensiveness, would be shorn away and arbitration would wind up looking like the litigation it was meant to displace." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, a sign of profound disagreement. In her written dissent, she called the majority opinion "egregiously wrong." In her oral statement, she said the upshot of the decision "will be huge under-enforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well being of vulnerable workers."
I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:2)
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Class actions solve the problem of having a large number of people with a small dollar issue. Individually, they are unable to take on a well funded company. Collectively, they can.
Many people complain that the "lawyers get too much money". That's true on both sides of the dispute. The final payout to plaintiffs may be small individually but the company does take a hit which hopefully discourages bad behavior. That's why companies are so eager to ban class action suits.
Re: (Score:2)
So having dozens or hundreds of trials (or, in this case arbitrations) with lawyers for each one would be better than a class action with a only few lawyers involved?
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Work makes free, after all, and the US is all about freedom :)
Arbeit macht frei
I prefer to use the original German phrase.
Re: I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:3)
Arbitration is an important tool for companies (and individuals) to utilize in dispute resolutions. Companies that treat employees as subhuman don't have to worry about employees suing them, they will be likely (especially in your example) be violating health and safety regulations. Even so, contracts are not effective against gross negligence or willful misconduct. I have to agree with the majority on this one. Lawsuits take much longer, cost much more, and usually only benefit the lawyers involved.
Lawsuit
Re: I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Interesting)
I've served on a jury (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever been involved in a jury selection process? I have. The only people left are the ones with no emotions and no coherent thoughts or ideas of their own. They also tend to have a below average IQ.
I've served on a jury and that is an absolute load of crap. You may have some juries that statistically fall out that way, but by and large they are composed of normal, working people take from the local population (usually on the basis of voter records or, in some jurisdictions, drivers license or other domicile info). There are those who lie to get out of jury duty, but given that you want an honest jury, they are inadvertently helping to self-select some rather loathsome people (themselves) out of the jury pool.
As for arbitration, I would trust the worst jury in the world over private arbitration where the offending party selects, and pays, the arbiter, which is generally how arbitration in the United States "works."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is the arbiters are employed by the corporation. Do you really think they're going to be impartial and make any significant rulings against the large company that is brining them the business? If they do the company will select a new company to start handling their arbitration claims.
If you want to make it at least somewhat fair, then you'll have to require the companies to let the employee pick the arbiter and not from a curated list.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is the arbiters are employed by the corporation.
Many arbitration clauses specify that the arbitrator must be accepted by both parties. If the parties can't agree, then the AAA [wikipedia.org] can assign one randomly.
Another common method is to use a 3 arbitrator panel. Each party picks an arbitrator, and the two of them pick a third.
Re: I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Arbitration is for when you do have a contract, that someone feels the other violated. Employment contracts should be subject to binding arbitration.
"Arbitration" is what the courts are for. Professional arbitrators know damn well who is paying their hourly rates and who to please in their judgements to get repeat business. It is an inherent conflict of interest which undermines the rule of law to outsource our civil court system to a bunch of lawyers on the take from big business.
Judges are paid by the public and serve the public interests. Arbitration should only be enforced by the courts if both parties continue to be in agreement throughout the arbitration and even after. There should be no such thing as "binding" arbitration that supersedes people's right to go to a civil court to seek an equitable resolution of a contract dispute.
That is a slippery slope if we can bargain away our rights under the law for a few bucks under some fine print nobody reads.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, just....wow.
Do you really believe this?
I mean, I've had a number of jobs over my lifetime. And in none of them, was a subjected to anything remotely looking to be like a "labor camp".
I started out washing dishes in restaurants, bus boy, waiting tables, bartending....later retail sales (mostly clothes and shoes, etc).
There was nothing oppressive about those jobs. They paid according to what
Re: (Score:2)
I started out washing dishes in restaurants, bus boy, waiting tables, bartending....later retail sales (mostly clothes and shoes, etc).
Well, when did that happen is of utmost importance. Was this 3, 10 or 20 years ago?
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Informative)
Go shill somewhere else. Your reference was what year? 1960 - 1970 range? it probably payed something liveable abck then.
minimum wage is not a living wage today, even if it was full-time work, which it almost-never is.
just show up and work? pfft --- employers are demanding their minimum wage employees not have a set scehdule -- have weird ever-changing shifts, not know their schedule until the night or just hours before. AND you are required to call in. they dont call you...... so you have no safety in scheduling daycare or even relaxing and using your non-work-time for recreation, let alone having a second job.
Their oppressive in that they pay minimally while impeding the ability to even work a second job. they impede to day to day life.
These employers make HUGE NET PROFITS, while keeping employees on minimum wage and thr STATE has to come in and pay food stamps.
of course, one could not work mimum wage --- and be kicked to the street, where almost everything is illegal. Loitering, park bench sleeping, or just sleping in a bush....So being a law-breaker one would then be placed in jail/prison where one is not rehabilitated, but punnished, and maybe also forced to also work for a PUBLIC/PRIVATE for-profit company.... for maybe 20 cents an hour.
I don't know about you, but i also feel if people who work in toxic environments, it should be the responsibility of the employer to contain that toxin. So the workers don't bring home mesothelioma to their children who hug their pan-legs, or the community at large. But the supreme court disagrees with that as well. disgusting.
but oh what country did you say you lived in? it doesn't sound like the usa i know and grew up in.
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Informative)
These jobs you're describing are all hourly positions. Legally your employer has to offer you breaks, and not just for meals. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff. It's all pretty straightforward, work and get paid. But not paid very much. You'll be kept part-time, and clear perhaps $10k-$20k a year. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.
You'll need to hold down 2 or 3 jobs, at a minimum, to keep body & soul together. Oh, and some of those hourly jobs, you're on call. No pay unless they call you in. But if you can't make it when they call, you'll make their shit list & they'll never call again. Unless you're a really attractive woman and the boss wants to hit on you.
Move up a notch, say to the programming world, and now you're salaried. Your employer can demand 60/80/100+ hours a week from you with no additional pay. They can fire you at any time. I had a boss that would schedule impromptu meetings at 8 o'clock at night, knowing that if I missed my bus I'd have to work several more hours before the next bus came. (Or wait outside in a dangerous neighborhood in sub-zero temperatures.) I've had bosses yelling in my face, "What do you mean you're going home. It's only 9pm. Your cat won't starve if you don't feed it for one night." (No, I'm not working there anymore. But it sure was difficult interviewing around while working so much overtime!)
Now add in the part where you have to sign a contract that not only signs over anything you do or create while employed, but also dictates where you can work and who you can talk to for 5 years or more after leaving said employment. And some of those contracts, they were pretty generous. I saw one that ruled out pretty much any commercial software development anywhere in the world for 5 years after leaving that job.
Yeah, it's pretty bad out there. But if you don't sign, you don't work. It seems like every employer has a contract like that. Eventually you get hungry.
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Interesting)
And, in a labor camp, you don't get a choice....I"ve yet to see any area of work in the US where they hold a gun to your head, and force you to stay as an employee against your will and not allowing you to quit and seek out alternative employment.
Being poor is effectively illegal. If you don't have money, you wind up having to do illegal things to exist. Some of these things are only mildly illegal, but they can lead in various ways to loss of possessions. Penalties for a lot of typical homeless behavior include fines... against people who don't have money. If you get into enough of this trouble long enough, they'll lock you up for long intervals — either in a prison rape factory, or an insanity-inducing facility for the criminally insane.
It's better than a literal labor camp, but there's definitely a similar mechanism at work. As it turns out, people work harder if they think they're getting a good deal. Most people are pretty easy to fool, so you fool 'em. The remainder you either lock up as a warning to others, or scare into working (by locking up that middle group.) Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that; there are various shades of tricked and scared. Foundation of society, anxiety, suppress it if you can [genius.com].
Or, have I missed something these past few decades?
If you have a roof over your head and know where your next paycheck is coming from, you are one of the 8%... worldwide. The rates are much better here [reuters.com]; The current U-6 unemployment rate is 7.8%, but even that fails to account for at least 7.5 additional million workers [cnn.com] who are unemployed. The U-2 is based on a claim of 6,346,000 unemployed workers, and it is little more than half of the U-6; This puts the total actual number of unemployed at somewhere in the vicinity of twenty million, with a rate of around 10 or 11 percent.
So uh, congrats on being part of the 90%, I guess. But that percentage is headed downwards. Young people are choosing to stay in school longer; I know for my part, when I did that it was because I didn't know what else I was going to do with myself, and there was grant and loan money available to me as a student. Others are no doubt working on more advanced degrees, in the hope that will differentiate them from other applicants, and it will; but in this economy, most of them are taking on massive student loan debt for that purpose which may never pay off.
Re: (Score:3)
And, in a labor camp, you don't get a choice....I"ve yet to see any area of work in the US where they hold a gun to your head, and force you to stay as an employee against your will and not allowing you to quit and seek out alternative employment.
Or, have I missed something these past few decades?
I do take issue with overly broad do not compete clauses. I get not taking specific skills learned at a job to another job and profiting from it. However when all a contracting company does is to skim off the paycheck they get for a contractor from the customer company, I really don't see a company having the right to say anything you learned on the job was provided by them. Not the same as holding a gun to your head or preventing you from working for anyone else in general but still legally preventing l
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
> Hey, here's a new concept for you. Your experiences are not that same as everyone else's.
Except you have ZERO experience. You just blindly swallow propaganda and media narrative. Some of us grew up working class. We have plenty of experience to draw from. We don't have to speculate about this stuff.
Alternatively, this is the information age.
If you want to spin a narrative, you can actually back up your hysterical nonsense with proof. You don't have to make up fantasies supported by absolutely nothing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a corporate kleptocracy. Run by and for the benefit of corporations. They buy politicians and judges to get the laws they want.
Also known as Fascism.
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Venezuela is just authoritarianism calling itself socialism. It's a stupid strawman to bring to an argument.
I raise you France, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Sweden as countries that have stronger worker protections than the US, but aren't starving to death either.
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't an issue with a clear-cut right or wrong answer. Increasing average productivity per citizen (at the end of the freedom scale most first world nations are at)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Average" GDP is basically a bullshit statistic, pardon my English.
It's only useful in context.
(1) What % of income is paid in tax? What services are given to taxpayers? i.e. if health care is subsidized or free, it means lower costs of living since people aren't paying private insurance premiums on top of taxes.
(2) What are costs of living? Housing costs? Does each family need two cars? Is university education free or cheap?
(3) What is the MEDIAN income? Not average, which can be skewed higher by
Re: (Score:3)
The richest European country is Luxembourg, with 600,000 people and $52,000 in median household income. Fairfax County, Virginia, with 1.1 million people, is at $115,000. Meanwhile, the poorest countries in the EU, Spain and Italy, are around
Re:I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:4, Interesting)
America is the land of "senseless rules." Hence their prison population of approximately 1% of all American adults.
In Western Europe, they don't normally bother with you unless you're caught harming someone.
Re: (Score:3)
... or caught smoking pot and caught in the criminal system, unemployability due to a record makes a person more likely to turn to theft and other crime. ... or bullied into a plea bargain by being jailed for a crime they were accused of. Etc.
Oh, and feck off with the racist tripe.
Re: I don't know how to feel about class actions (Score:3)
While I agree the lawyers can get predatory with their fees , class actions are a vital mechanism for civil society to respond to injustices or illegal behavior as a group. This is especially important for poorer folks who might simply be incapable of commissioning a lawyer to defend them , but as a group can spread out that cost and get relief in.bulk. To be honest the government should find these but yeah that ain't ever gonna happen. Rich folks , the people who don't need them and have the most to lose w
Re: (Score:3)
I've been wondering lately if we don't have the incentives all wrong...
What if we created a corporation type that had half of all voting shares collectively owned by the employees, no matter what? Perhaps share ownership isn't the way to do it - maybe it would just be a representation matter. But the gist is that employees and owners would have equal parts in the running of the business. You could make this arrangement very tax-advantaged as a way to encourage adoption of this structure.
Then you could extra
Re: (Score:3)
What if we created a corporation type that had half of all voting shares collectively owned by the employees
Congratulations, you've just invented the "cooperative", specifically a worker cooperative [wikipedia.org]. There's nothing that prevents you from founding or working for one of these companies, here's a list [wikipedia.org] of active worker cooperatives in the United States.
One more reason to love unions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
now will someone explain to me what the company or the union get out of forced non work? Why would they have it in their contract forcing people who dont want to strike and want to work to strike (non payed of course)
that clause when I first heard
Re: (Score:2)
It's sad (so sad, it's a sad sad situation) but really fairly true that nobody else is looking out for the rights of those workers as much as their unions either.
If we could agree on more protections for all workers (some would say, all people, but fight on one front at a time I guess) then we wouldn't need unions. But right now they're the lesser of evils.
Re: (Score:2)
BR the company i currently work for has the option be in the union or dont, and i get paid better and have better benefits than my union co workers.
unions had a time and a place, but their time has passed.
Re: (Score:2)
unions had a time and a place, but their time has passed.
I agree, but only with the provision that we can't do away with them without actually instituting something better.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Far more highly unionized. Union reps sit in on management meetings, have at least one seat on the board, and the average German auto worker makes twice what the average US auto worker makes.
Re:One more reason to love unions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Being highly uninioned in a country that already implements many of the most costly demands of labor isn't exactly a huge feat.
Union Workers - "We demand reasonable cost healthcare"
American Businesses - "No way, we would go bankrupt"
German Businesses - "uh, what? We don't have anything to do with your healthcare costs"
Union Workers - "We demand 4 weeks of vacation!"
American Businesses - "No way, we would go bankrupt"
German Businesses - "But we already give you 6 if you count holidays. It's the law afterall"
etc. etc. etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course being highly unionized is how a lot of this became law in the first place, if they've first given in to the union's demands it's better for them to lobby it into law so the non-union shops are stuck with it too.
Re:One more reason to love unions... (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally think unions are a horrible idea. Except in America where they can only be described as essential. Most western countries exited the industrial revolution with strong workplace protections thanks to the unions of the time making the concept somewhat obsolete in the current age. Somehow this didn't happen in the USA, and the us vs them mentality along with the desire for governments to not exist and generally stay out of everyone's business is stronger than ever.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unions abroad suffer from a lack of relevance. They sit around collecting dues and then every few years come out and do something disproportionate over nothing. Even in France the general public are sick of them, their latest train stunt not withstanding. This is especially true in France which has some of the toughest worker protections in the world.
In many countries they are the very image of the bullies fighting against companies trying to stay afloat. I'm probably jaded. Personally I stepped out of my u
Re: (Score:3)
Without unions the bal
Re: (Score:2)
im not exactly a big fan of unions, as I've seen them collect dues and do nothing in the interest of their members for years (such as a teachers union in the face of firing teachers who get paid more due to education level should they reach their _required_ masters degree before having first attained tenure). But on principle your theory works fine even without unions. If the workplace is enough to warrant a class-action, direct lawsuit, or a strike, then even a worker organized call-in-sick strike can be e
Re: (Score:2)
Re: One more reason to love unions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions walk away because Almost every real option to fight back has been outlawed and the union can't go outlaw unless it has much much larger buy in from the working class. And the working class ain't buying in because the unions are perceived as innefective. It's a vicious cycle really
Maybe it's time for the Wobblies to stage a come back. Put a real nemesis for bad bosses to fear back into the mix
Re: (Score:2)
Unions walk away because Almost every real option to fight back has been outlawed ....
Here I thought the union's best tactic was to walk out (i.e. go on strike), and you openly admit that they still can while claiming they have had their power curbed by law? Which is it? Unions can strike or unions have no legal options?
Re: One more reason to love unions... (Score:4, Interesting)
LOL.. SO you are upset with workers who refuse to join the union and pay dues to get a job? This isn't the company's beating the Union, this is the Union not being relevant and efficient enough to be worth the dues they collect so workers abandoned them.
And it's "right to work" states you are upset with... You know the ones with the low unemployment numbers to go along with those low percentages of union jobs? Employers LOVE "right to work" states... You *SHOULD* be griping about the NLRB letting the likes of Boeing and auto makers farm out work to non-union shops in right to work states, but no... You are shooting at the wrong problem.
I had a contract clause removed before accepting j (Score:2)
Some people think you can't even talk about the contract before accepting it, but before I accepted my current job I pointed out a clause in the contract that didn't work for me. I discussed it with my new employer and came up with wording which worked for both of us.
When I was hiring people, I sometimes proactively adjusted the contract to fit their needs. I knew one guy had a local company of his own in his country of origin and that might conflict with the non-compete clause in the standard contract. So
Don't try to make Starbucks a great career (Score:3)
If you work at Starbucks making coffee and your job sucks (redundancy alert), the solution is to finish high school so you can stop making coffee at Starbucks. "Starbucks barista" is never, ever going to be a great career. It doesn't matter how much you whine, petition, legislate, hope for change, or whatever, that job sucks and it always will. Trying to make that a great job is a losing battle. The way to win that game is to use your barista money to eat while you get your OMSCS, then you get a good job.
Re:One more reason to love unions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
True that we only have one vote, but it's a big vote. We can always walk.
Re:One more reason to love unions... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where would this apply? (Score:2)
If you had a legitimate gripe with a company, wouldn't you individually try to get a settlement? Let's say you're 43 (like me) and work at some hipster SV web startup, and have a literal smoking-gun recording of your boss saying he doesn't like promoting old people? Or if you're a woman and some idiot salesman gets wasted at a party and assaults you in front of 50 people?
Class action settlements don't seem like the best way to get results. In consumer class actions, the defendant "admits no wrongdoing," pay
Re:Where would this apply? (Score:5, Insightful)
In consumer class-actions, the loss to each consumer is often very small ... i.e. a $100 electronic device was defective.
In cases against employers where losses from loss of income or health issues can be in the $10,000+ range, plaintiffs would get much more, even if lawyers would also profit.
There's also the angle that the companies should be punished for their bad behavior by paying.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop Judicial Activisim (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like the law, then pass different legislation. The court properly upheld the law as passed by congress. To rule otherwise would make the Judaical branch into an elite legislature that wasn't elected and has no check on its power.
Re: (Score:3)
> Checks and balances is such an outdated system that we can just forget it exists. Whatever Congress or the President decrees is the law, no exceptions.
Two laws were in play. The new law did not say that it overrode the old law. You are butt hurt that the judiciary didn't just make shit up. You're stupid to think something like that will never come back to hurt you.
If a "liberal" can do it for "liberal reasons" then so can your enemies.
Gorsuch is doing exactly what SCOTUS should do (Score:4, Insightful)
Gorsuch is laying out exactly what you would hope SCOTUS would do: That is, interpret the current law with as much accuracy and honesty as possible, and put the onus back on Congress to alter the law if it is bad. Ginsberg is firmly in the legislate-from-the-bench category and it is dangerous and disturbing to see.
Re:Gorsuch is doing exactly what SCOTUS should do (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress and state legislatures represent the rabble, who are often small-minded, uneducated little bigots. The proper role of the Supreme Court is to determine whether laws passsed are in line with the Constitution and general human rights.
If the Supreme Court hadn't stepped in and "legislated from the bench" during the 1950s and 1960s, we'd probably still have legal segregation and bans on interracial marriage at the State level. Not to mention same-sex marriage would still be illegal.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope.
By the 50s and 60s the Constitution had been amended so that it very clearly applies to everyone and that everyone is equal with respect to the laws and their application.
So the decisions of the 50s and 60s that advanced civil rights are clearly within the scope of the courts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, the commerce clause being used to make the federal government supreme over anything the supreme court wants is really in line with the constitution ...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Gorsuch is doing exactly what SCOTUS should do (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The Constitution is a good framework, but it's also an outdated document and not the be-all-and-end-all of personal rights that many American think that it is. The more rights given the average worker and citizen, the better! I love Ruth Bader Ginsberg because she recognizes an implicit right to privacy, even if it's not explicit to the Constitution.
The Founders couldn't have imagined things like smartphones and Big Data in the 1700s, so the courts must adapt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Just because a right is not enumerated in the Constitution doesn't mean it isn't a right. In my experience "legislating from the bench" or "judicial activism" means "a ruling was made with which I politically disagree". For example, many conservatives consider Roe v Wade to be legislating from the bench and many liberals consider Citizen's United v FEC to be the s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the end is more freedom for the public, any means justify that end. Even if it means bypassing a bunch of (mostly) old men who managed to con the public into voting for them.
Freedom is more important than "democracy." Remember, that a lynch mob often represents the will of a majority of the people, but I think we've moved beyond lynch law.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As he said, not good policy, but it's the law (Score:5, Informative)
As he said in the opinion, it's highly debatable of this is good policy, but it's quite clear what the law is. Congress makes law, not unelected, unaccountable judges.
Re: (Score:2)
If something is illegal, does that automatically make it immoral?
Re: (Score:2)
It's quite clear in the text of the NLRA that it applies, and it's quite clear in the text of the arbitration act ("except âoeupon such grounds as exist at law") that is secondary to other laws.
Gorsuch just hand-waves that away with vague 'structure of the NLRB' contortions.
To put it mildly, it's a pathetic bit of judicial reasoning.
That only applies if the law itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom to Suffer [Re:That only applies if the (Score:3)
Technically it's not "forced arbitration" because one is not forced to sign the employment contract in a direct sense. However, during economic slumps or individual hard times, an individual doesn't have much practical choice: they are compelled to take any job they are offered, include those with arbitration clauses. A desperate person has no practical freedom of choice, and thus it's lopsided bargaining not much different than what the mob offers small shopkeepers: "an offer you can't refuse."
Re: (Score:3)
Be Rich or Get Screwed (Score:2)
Re:Be Rich or Get Screwed (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Look it up.
Sad times when the sheep sympathize more with the wolves than with other sheep.
Re: (Score:2)
Stockholm syndrome?
though an interesting name since stockholm isnt in America
Re: (Score:2)
Unionzie! (Score:3)
It's time to Unionzie! so the working man has a voice.
Re: (Score:2)
Which side are you on...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What did you learn in school...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Giving up your rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The system is designed in favor of employers (Score:2)
The system has been in favor of employers for an extremely long time. Even our healthcare is a form of bondage. It doesnt matter how you come down on the healthcare debate, the fact that my healthcare is tied to my employer is a deliberate move to give employers more leverage to mistreat the employee. In any other healthcare system, whether it is socialized or otherwise, the ability to pick and choose your doctor is not tied to your employer. Once you have a decent healthcare plan and dependents, well, depe
Re:It should be pointed out... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It should be pointed out... (Score:4, Informative)
Seems to be they sided with the Law and court Precedence.
"Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.
"The policy may be debatable but the law is clear: Congress has instructed that arbitration agreements like those before us must be enforced as written," Gorsuch writes. "While Congress is of course always free to amend this judgment, we see nothing suggesting it did so in the NLRA — much less that it manifested a clear intention to displace the Arbitration Act. Because we can easily read Congress's statutes to work in harmony, that is where our duty lies."
NPR [npr.org]
Re: (Score:3)
"Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis â" and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.
Federal law shouldn't trump the Constitution.
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Yeah, and activists knew full well that this was case that would have gone the other way if the seat had not been stolen for Gorsuch.
That's a pretty sad statement about liberal judges if you think that NONE of them can interpret the law without inserting their own personal partisan agenda into it.
Re:It should be pointed out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm. American courts presided over by Republican appointees, you mean. As has been pointed out before, Trump may be putting on a big freak show out front, but the Congress is remaking the courts quite 'effectively' behind the scenes. Somehow they managed to obstruct Obama's nominees so effectively that not only did they leave a huge backlog of slots to fill, they so frustrated the Democrats that the Dems knocked down some of the means of obstruction they could've used to stop it. Of course, the Republicans have knocked down the rest of those means since they took over, so it might not have helped for the Democrats to have held out on this or that 'nuclear option'.
Amazing what you can get done when you have no respect for norms - or Democracy itself, and an effective and well-funded propaganda engine covering your tracks.
Re: (Score:3)
It's always been a partisan issue - but the various options for blocking partisan nominations made sure that only relatively moderate nominees would survive the partisan process. But when Obama got in, the Republicans started blocking every judicial nominee Obama sent up - until yes, the Democrats removed some of the blocking mechanisms. And yes, people said at the time "be careful what you ask for - you won't be in the majority forever". But seriously, what were they supposed to do, when the Republicans
Re: (Score:2)