Supreme Court Backs Mandatory Arbitration Today— Again

Check your employee handbook—or your offer letter—or your employment contract, if you have one. Odds are that you waived your right to sue your employer.

Suppose your boss or co-worker gropes you. You must take it to arbitration, even though laws provide you a right to file a lawsuit in federal or state court. 
Suppose your employer fails to pay overtime and you’re an hourly employee. Take it to arbitration. The list goes on and on.

Some years ago, Merrill Lynch contacted me to arbitrate an employment dispute. They’d pay me $2,400 a day to hear the case— double the rate I charge to unions and employers. I asked about the other party. I was told the complainant is a female employee who was suing over sex discrimination and a court enforced her arbitration agreement. 
She had no say in my appointment, and she was not responsible for paying me. Merrill Lynch would take care of everything.
I declined the offer because I felt I was being bought, legally bought.

Today, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court overruled an NLRB decision that said that workers could legally band together in a lawsuit and resist mandatory arbitration. The NLRB ruling applied whether the employees were unionized or not.

There is hypocrisy is today’s majority opinion. These five justices are generally against government regulation, and justify their worldview by saying that individuals should have more personal freedom.

What the five justices don’t say in today’s opinion is that they’re all for big corporate power—and for avoidance of public courts—and for sweeping discrimination under many corporate rugs—and for maintaining the lock that large firms have over ordinary women and men—and for private justice systems where the stronger party gets to pick its judge, overpay that person, and call it a fair process.

Really, what’s the point of passing a law that benefits individuals if those individuals are required to waive their right to enforce the law in a court of law?

Today’s cases are Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, case number 16-285; Ernst & Young LLP et al. v. Stephen Morris et al., case number 16-300; NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA Inc., case number 16-307, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

PHOTO CREDIT: The Economist (U.K.)