As Mother Jones wrote last year, mandatory arbitration agreements have become increasingly common in recent years and provide significant benefits to employers: In the early 1990s, less than 4 percent of companies surveyed by the Government Accountability Office, an independent government agency, used mandatory arbitration for their employees. Today, more than half of private-sector non-union workers are subject to it, according to a report published last week by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. Forty-one percent of those employees—24.7 million workers—have also waived their right to class-action litigation. Alexander Colvin, an expert on arbitration at Cornell University and the author of the report, expects more companies to add these waivers if the Supreme Court declares them legally enforceable. Companies have a significant incentive to do so. In 2015, Colvin found that employees win 21 percent of arbitration cases, compared to 57 percent of cases in state court. (Employees are far less likely to pursue grievances when they’re subject to arbitration: Colvin estimates that workers are 50 times likelier to sue than to arbitrate.) Workers also get less money when they’re successful: $109,000 in arbitration compared to $575,000 in state court. Colvin says lawyers he speaks with are less likely to represent workers bound by arbitration because they take a share of the damages.
Mother Jones
May 22, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than half of American private-sector non-union employees — about 60.1 million workers — are subject to mandatory employment arbitration.
San Francisco Chronicle
May 22, 2018
In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the decision would lead to “underenforcement” of laws that are designed to protect workers. In Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City alone, low-wage workers already lose nearly $3 billion in legally owed wages every year, due to “widespread” violations of minimum-wage and overtime laws, she wrote, citing a study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI). That number could grow if workers are forced to address those violations through arbitration.
The New Food Economy
May 22, 2018
Wage theft – which includes wage and hour violations such as paying below minimum wage, misclassifying employees to avoid overtime pay and illegal deductions – is a widespread and underreported problem. For instance, one 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, found that in the 10 most populous states, 2.4 million workers were paid less than the minimum wage, to the tune of an estimated US$15 billion in lost wages per year nationwide. … Gorsuch also has a very rosy view of arbitration as quick, informal and cheap. Yet if arbitration was so effective at dispensing justice, employees would be lining up to take advantage of this forum. They are not. The Economic Policy Institute found that only 1 in 32,000 employees actually files for arbitration.
The Conversation
May 22, 2018
An estimated 25 million American workers are prohibited from suing their employers in class-action lawsuits due to forced arbitration agreements, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Consumer Affairs
May 22, 2018
The use of these waivers has exploded in recent years. The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that mandatory arbitration clauses now cover 60.1 million workers nationwide, and 24.7 million of them include class action waivers.
HR Drive
May 22, 2018
There are many who think the structure of work is rapidly changing. The “gig economy,” they argue, is replacing the old economy; robots and artificial intelligence are displacing workers faster than ever. “The Future of Work” has become an angst-prone staple at conferences across the globe. It’s always possible that this time is different, and, in fact, some notable differences are in play. But after reading a new paper by the Economic Policy Institute’s Larry Mishel on the economics of labor at Uber, I’m convinced that the new thinking needs a rethink. The challenges facing the future of work are, in fact, steep, but they’re largely the same ones facing the present (and the past): Too many workers have too little bargaining clout, and they are exploited in jobs that lack a robust set of labor protections. In other words, this is neither a technology problem nor an evolution-of-work problem. It’s a political problem — one that could be solved by supportive policy. (whole story)
The Washington Post
May 22, 2018
“Uber and the gig economy both exhibit a clear duality,” the Economic Policy Institute wrote this month. “On the one hand, these platforms engage many participants, though most do so for supplementary income on a very part-time basis and frequently for a limited time. On the other hand, these platforms have a core group who are full-time, and year-round workers who provide a large share of the services to consumers provided by these platforms.”
CNBC
May 22, 2018
There’s an old saying where I’m from: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The recent report by the Economic Policy Institute comparing the economic records of Wisconsin and Minnesota since Governors Scott Walker and Mark Dayton took office in January 2011, is a case in point. It was seized upon by people, including a columnist for this news organization, who saw it as vindicating things they already believed. But just as you should never buy a car without checking under the hood, you should never trumpet an economic report as proving your case until you have checked the numbers for yourself. If the folks who saw proof in the EPI’s report that Governor Dayton’s policies were so much better than Governor Walker’s had done this, they would have found that on some important measures Wisconsin’s economy has actually outperformed Minnesota’s. (whole story)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
May 22, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute, for instance, recently released a study in which it compared Wisconsin’s and Minnesota’s economies. Comparing the two states has long been a favorite topic of economists because of their remarkable similarities that date back to when the Norwegians and Germans began settling in the upper Midwest in the early- to mid-1800s.
The Cap Times
May 22, 2018