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The Center for American Progress reports
The Supreme Court held on [May 21] that employers can force their employees to sign away many of their rights to sue their employers. As a practical matter, Monday's decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis [PDF] will enable employers to engage in small-scale wage theft with impunity, so long as they spread the impact of this theft among many employees.
Neil Gorsuch, who occupies the seat that Senate Republicans held open for a year until Donald Trump could fill it, wrote the Court's 5-4 decision. The Court split along party lines.
Epic Systems involves three consolidated cases, each involving employment contracts cutting off employees' rights to sue their employer in a court of law. In at least one of these cases, the employees were required to sign away these rights as a condition of starting their job. In another, existing workers were told to sign away their rights if they wanted to keep working.
Each contract contained two provisions, a "forced arbitration" provision, which requires legal disputes between the employer and the employee to be resolved by a private arbitrator and not by a real court; and a provision prohibiting employees from bringing class actions against the employer.
Writing with his trademarked smugness, Gorsuch presents Epic Systems as a simple application of a legal text. "The parties before us contracted for arbitration", he writes. "They proceeded to specify the rules that would govern their arbitrations, indicating their intention to use individualized rather than class or collective action procedures. And this much the Arbitration Act seems to protect pretty absolutely."
It's the sort of statement someone might write if they'd never read the Federal Arbitration Act--the law at the heart of this case--and had only read the Supreme Court's decisions expanding that act's scope.
[...] Epic Systems means that employers who cheat a single employee out of a great deal of money will probably be held accountable for their actions--though it is worth noting that arbitrators are more likely to favor employers than courts of law, and that they typically award less money to employees when those employees do prevail. The biggest losers under Epic Systems, however, will be the victims of widespread, but small-scale, wage theft.
Via Common Dreams, Public Citizen says Congress Should Overturn Today's U.S. Supreme Court Decision Eroding Workers' Rights
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch, and the courts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:41AM (10 children)
Just because you don't like the outcome doesn't mean the judicial decision is wrong. Perhaps Congress SHOULD "overturn" the decision by changing the law. That doesn't mean that the judges decided the law as it exists incorrectly.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:54AM (4 children)
People don't understand the role of the judiciary.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:04AM (3 children)
Including some of the people *on* the judiciary, it seems...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:36AM
And, they tend to be on the "left".
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:00AM (1 child)
And, they tend to be on the "left".
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:30AM
Whoa, boy, someone hasn't been watching since, oh, the 2000 elections or so. Piss off, you brainless nutter.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:06AM (4 children)
The law should be overturned because the arbitration act as being used is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and the ruling in Bolling v. Sharpe that the due process clause of the 5th amendments means that the feds also must provide equal protect. Arbitration favors the party already benefiting from an imbalance of power. The arbitration act and the cases mentioned in the ThinkProgress article codifies that the powerful are more protected; therefore, it is unconstitutional.
It can also reasonable be argued that banning class actions suits is a violation of our first amendment rights to peaceably assemble.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:05AM (2 children)
WRT agreeing to arbitration as a condition of being hired, AC #682902, above in the (meta)thread, said
it's hardly voluntary.
Any parent knows that you let 1 kid cut the remaining bit of cake into 2 pieces and the other kid gets to decide which of the pieces he wants.
In this case, the employee gets to choose the arbiter.
There. That wasn't so difficult. Was it?
Surely, that's in the decision somewhere.
I mean, those SCOTUS folks are supposed to be the smartest and the best at this stuff. /sarc
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:39AM (1 child)
Agreeing to do certain work is usually a condition for being hired; I guess all work is hardly voluntary, by your stupid leftist anti-logic.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:31AM
Your Gordian knot of logic reveals your addled brain.
Inhale once in a while and let some oxygen get to that thing.
stupid leftist
The folks at (Socialist) Mondragon can hardly wait to get to work.
Being your own boss can have that effect.
Now, -that- is what being Leftist is all about.
Go ahead and use your limited knowledge base and even more limited intellect to continue thinking about a future where you will always be working for The Man, making him rich from the surplus. [google.com]
Dumb: Why are you hitting yourself in the head with that hammer?
Dumber: Because it feels so good when I stop.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by mmarujo on Wednesday May 23 2018, @10:38AM
As an outsider, I see issues such as this with concern.
Although I'm technically in Europe (Portugal) several "innovations" have a tendency to bleed over. Right now we already have Arbitration, but it's optional. No one can be forced to it. But I fear it's only a matter of time.
What I don't understand Is how this can be constitutional. There are supposed to be 3 branches of government: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. How can a simple contract remove one of them?