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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 bussdriver on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:12PM (2 children)
Judges strike down laws and interpret and apply them. They do not make laws, they have power to destroy them word by word. idiot.
It's a huge power and can look almost similar to writing laws.
A CORRUPT judge and pick and choose what laws and rights to uphold... they are almost always lawyers so they can argue any position well enough to fool half people (who are below average.)
HUMAN RIGHTS are not given to you; they are inherent and not enumerated-- see the constitution and founders; they got it.
Your right to legal due process exists even if the broken government steals that right from you! They can take it but you always have it.
You can not lose your rights by being blackmaled by small print private contracts. You can't sign yourself into slavery. No law can allow that either without going against human rights... and the constitution. (human rights are greater thanthe constitution)
This ruling is corrupt judges using narrow scope to avoid their creeping fascism. it's that simple; sorry if I am way ahead of most readers-- instead of thinking I'm a nut and turning off your brain maybe you should consider I'm way ahead of the curve... like the founders were with their crazy ideas back in their day.
Think about how far we go for your right to a lawyer and due process-- then think about how all of this including the early 90s Bush era start of this arbitration robbing of legal rights from the people. Now you can be screwed out of easily $20,000 because it will cost you that much just to begin a battle with your employer... they can do it to ALL the employees because they can't band together anymore. unions are nearly dead; and not very powerful where they still exist.
Americans are fucking themselves; which just proves what everybody has been thinking for generations: stupid ignorant selfish Americans.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:54PM
I live here, and sadly it is incredibly accurate. The success of capitalism was strongly correlated with the technological advancements, and the paradoxical measures of success are lower costs to consumers and greater profits for the owners. The paradox is that lower prices require lower wages which created a feedback loop harming all employees. Capitalism is great for a narrow subset of businesses, but it is time to stop worshiping money and go back to promoting a healthy society.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 25 2018, @04:11AM
Roe v. Wade is an excellent counterexample.
In other words, you are claiming justices have the power to decide a law by arbitrary degree. Not helping your argument.
And if you can't exercise them because you are coerced by a greater power, then it doesn't matter.