The ruling on the case means that employees who must sign arbitration agreements as a condition of their employment will not be able to participate in class-action lawsuits. Now, employers can effectively ban class-action lawsuits by forcing employees to sign one of these agreements in order to get a job. According to a 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute, there are close to 25 million workers who had to sign arbitration agreements.
Brit + Co
May 24, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute, some 60 million nonunionized private-sector employees work under agreements that preclude them from suing their employers over workplace disputes. Arbitration can be a useful way of resolving a conflict without the expense and time investment of going through the courts. But arbitration agreements are fair only if the two sides entering into them do so willingly and on equal footing. If employers routinely force applicants to sign away the right to sue in order to get hired, then the two sides are clearly not entering arbitration willingly or as equals. And studies have found that workers win arbitration cases at lower rates than they do court cases.
Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2018
A 2018 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that more than half of private, non-union employees — some 60 million workers — are subject to mandatory employment arbitration procedures. That means if you signed something that says you agree to mandatory arbitration if you have an issue with your company, you cannot bring a class action lawsuit against your company with your colleagues.
Refinery29
May 23, 2018
Companies are increasingly requiring employees to agree to forced arbitration as a condition of employment. A recent study by Cynthia Estlund at the Economic Policy Institute showed that 56 percent of non-unionized private sector employees — that’s 60.1 million American workers — are currently subject to forced arbitration.
ACLU
May 23, 2018
Mandatory arbitration agreements often prevent workers from coming together to file lawsuits against employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act and other laws meant to protect workers, according to Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute. Instead, workers are forced to air their grievances individually in arbitration processes set up as alternatives to courtroom disputes. Pro-labor groups say arbitration often favors employers, particularly when unions are not involved. Lawyers also tend to be less interested in representing workers taking up small claims on their own than a class-action case that could secure significant damages. “This means that a worker who is not paid fairly, discriminated against, or sexually harassed, is forced into a process that overwhelmingly favors the employer — and forced to manage this process alone, even though these issues are rarely confined to one single worker,” McNicholas said in a statement. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that more than half of all nonunion workers in the United States have signed mandatory arbitration agreements, and Monday’s ruling could affect nearly 25 million workers nationwide.
Truth-Out
May 23, 2018
Mandatory arbitration agreements have become increasingly common, and research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that over 55 percent of all workers are subject to mandatory arbitration requirements and 30 percent of employers that require mandatory arbitration also include class action waivers.
Congressman Bobby Scott
May 23, 2018
A 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that 56% of nonunion private-sector employees in the U.S., about 60 million workers, are subject to mandatory arbitration procedures, and 23%, almost 25 million workers, are barred from joining class-action suits. Less than 10% of employers requiredarbitration in the 1990s, it added.
Labor Press
May 23, 2018
Employees are far less likely to win their cases in mandatory arbitration than in the courts, according to a report by the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute.
New York Daily News
May 23, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute, mandatory arbitration prevents nearly 30 million women from suing their employers over harassment. Attorney Debra Katz says,
National Organization for Women
May 23, 2018
A few weeks ago I suggested that the gig economy still didn’t seem like a very big deal. I based this on the fact that the share of part-time workers isn’t growing, which you’d expect to see if gig work is becoming more common. That’s a crude but fairly effective metric, but I promised to post better evidence if anything came my way.
Now it has. In a new report, Larry Mishel of EPI refers to previous estimates that the gig economy accounts for somewhere between ½-1 percent of the total economy. That’s pretty small, but when you account for total hours worked by typical gig workers it becomes even smaller: (whole story)
Mother Jones
May 23, 2018