In a major victory for corporate America Justices Halt Right to Sue Over Job Bias

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Justices Halt Right to Sue Over Job Bias

Supreme Court: Ruling says workers can be forced into arbitration. It is seen as 'very good' for business.

By DAVID G. SAVAGE, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON--In a major victory for corporate America, the Supreme Court on Wednesday repealed the right of American workers to go to court over job bias, ruling that their employers may force them to take their complaints to private arbitration.
The court's 5-4 ruling could shift the balance of power in favor of management and weaken job protections for millions of American workers. With this decision, employers can now require their workers to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment.
Employment arbitration has grown rapidly in the last decade, and surveys have shown that as many as 1 in 12 U.S. workers is covered by an arbitration clause. But until now, there have been legal doubts about whether unwilling workers could be forced to accept arbitration.
In Wednesday's ruling, the court's conservative majority said that the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 trumps an employee's right to sue under more recent workplace anti-discrimination laws.
Stephen Bokat, an attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, predicted that more companies will adopt arbitration.
"Some have been holding back, awaiting a decision on this issue. Now that it's clear, I think they will move forward," he said. "It is a very good decision for business."
Employers have long complained that discrimination lawsuits are costly and time consuming. They say arbitration offers a quicker and cheaper way to resolve disputes.
Most workers' rights lawyers say arbitration tilts the system in favor of employers. They say juries are more likely to award money damages to an aggrieved worker. And many companies pay large sums to settle lawsuits out of court and avoid a jury trial.
One advocate of workers' rights said arbitration is not inherently unfair, but he worried that the law does not require fair procedures.
"This is a sad day for workplace justice in America," said Lewis Maltby, counsel for the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J. "The Supreme Court has given employers carte blanche to set up a private justice system, without any provision to say it must be fair and voluntary."
The ruling will have an immediate effect in California. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco, had insisted that job bias victims had a right to take their claims before a jury.
But most other federal appeals courts have upheld arbitration agreements.
The Supreme Court took up the case of a Northern California computer salesman to resolve the dispute over the law.
Saint Clair Adams, 37, who is gay, said he had been harassed repeatedly by co-workers and a store manager at a Circuit City outlet in Santa Rosa.
He sued under California's civil rights law and sought a jury trial. But the company went to court to have his claim thrown out and sent to arbitration. Adams, like all Circuit City employees, had signed an arbitration agreement as a condition of being hired.
In Circuit City vs. Adams, 99-1379, the Supreme Court relied on the 1925 arbitration law to reverse the 9th Circuit Court.
This law was originally passed to require courts to honor arbitration verdicts in disputes involving shipping firms and other businesses that moved goods. But the conservative justices said that the law also can be read to cover other arbitration agreements, including "contracts for employment."
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas formed the majority.
Ten years ago, the court upheld an arbitration clause that was standard for stockbrokers and ruled that it prevented an older worker from suing his brokerage firm for age discrimination.
"The court has been quite specific in holding that arbitration agreements can be enforced under the FAA," Kennedy said, despite the "specific protections against discrimination" written into federal law.
Now, all employers are free to require their workers to sign an agreement to arbitrate their disputes. And employers can use these agreements to block workers from going to court.
"There are real benefits to the enforcement of arbitration provisions," Kennedy said. It "allows parties to avoid the cost of litigation."
Companies that are sued will see a real cost benefit in arbitration. They can avoid the expense of a long jury trial as well as discovery orders that seek information from company files. Arbitration also does away with the possibility of a huge damages verdict.
The cost benefit is not so apparent for workers. Some arbitration systems require both parties to split the cost of the proceeding, meaning that a disgruntled employee might have to pay thousands of dollars just to have a claim heard.
By contrast, workers have been able to go to court for no cost because plaintiff's lawyers will take cases with the understanding that they will be paid only if their client wins.
Studies that have compared private arbitration and jury trials have yielded mixed results. Workers rarely win a large money award through arbitration, but some studies have found that they are slightly more likely to win some money through arbitration than from going to court.
Maltby, though a critic of arbitration in general, praised the American Arbitration Assn. for insisting on fair procedures.
"There are arbitration systems that produce very good results, but I'm pessimistic. The [U.S.] Supreme Court has shown no interest in requiring fairness, and employers are not likely to do it out of the goodness of their heart," he said.
Unionized workers have long used arbitration to settle disputes with management. Those systems are seen as fair because both sides have bargaining clout in setting the rules.
California experts said Wednesday's rulings could affect not just discrimination lawsuits but workers who sue for a wrongful termination or other job complaints.
Last year, the California Supreme Court said it would not enforce arbitration clauses that were not fair to workers, and some lawyers predicted a new round of litigation.
"I think the courts will have to look at this again. It has to be fair to both parties," said Art Silbergeld, a management lawyer in Los Angeles.
For its part, the Supreme Court majority has shown little interest in civil rights for workers.
Ten years ago, Congress took up a civil rights bill to reverse a series of conservative rulings from the Rehnquist Court that made it hard for workers to win claims of job bias. After a long battle, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which gave workers the right to a jury trial.
In Wednesday's ruling, the court essentially erased that law by saying the Federal Arbitration Act had given employers a way to do an end-run around the legal system.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens accused his colleagues of ignoring the obvious "disparity in bargaining power" between an individual employee and a large company.
"When the court simply ignores the interest of the unrepresented employee, it skews its interpretation with its own policy preferences. That's the sad result in this case," said Stevens, who was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 22, 2001

Answers

The positive advances of the past 30 years continue to be wiped out. One after the other, fairness and the rights of the individual are being removed in favor of big business.
So your boss doesn't like you and fires you for no legal reason? Too bad, the company gets to decide if you were treated unfairly. Unfair? That is in the eyes of those who would pay you if they determine they were unfair. Will they find themselves unfair? Getting the picture yet?

The threat of lawsuits and having to pay big bucks when they use unfair practices has curbed runaway mistreatment of workers. Not any more. Work for a company for 24 years, 2 years away from retirement where they have to pay you the pension they promised you? You get fired, for no apparent reason. Can you go to court to get fair compensation for your years of loyally to the company? No, the company gets to decide if they had a reason to fire you, and by doing so, not have to pay you retirement pension they owe you. This used to be a common practice at Boeing, here in Seattle. Then laws were passed to allow the worker to go to court to be heard, and if they won their case, compensated. Not any more. Be prepared to loose every thing you work the bulk of your life to achieve, and with Soc. Sec wiped out, you can live on the street and starve as far as this administration, and current supreme court, is concerned.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 22, 2001.


After a long battle, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which gave workers the right to a jury trial. In Wednesday's ruling, the court essentially erased that law...

Justice John Paul Stevens accused his colleagues of ignoring the obvious "disparity in bargaining power" between an individual employee and a large company.

Corporations are intent on dismantling every encumbrance on their free exercise of power. Corporations have always demanded that employees sign contracts that give up their rights in exchange for employment. Now they will just get more aggressive than ever about it.

We have lived in an era where the laws and the courts have agreed that our individual rights supercede such unequal contracts. The Scalias and Thomases of the Supreme Court are reversing this.

Wake up, people! If this trend continues, corporations will render us completely powerless. In order to deal with them at any level, we'll have to sign waivers, alienating our "inalienable" rights. The benign sages of our Supreme court will nod and smile and wave as we rocket straight to hell.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 22, 2001.


Anybody else around here write paychecks instead of getting them? No offense but life on the other side of biz (small) ain't so hot either.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), March 22, 2001.

I think we need to go to a two thirds majority system in the supreme court. I do not know how this would be done(constitutional amendment?) but with every decision these days being 5-4, and so much in the balance, essentially ONE vote has been determining what is "fair" in this country.

I am too vehement about this decision to even comment. I just will not work for a company which demands I submit to arbitration.

The Supreme court is broken; it is corrupt. Why does a constitutional amendment have to have two thirds of the states pass it, but a simple majority carries a vote in the supreme court? Mumbling to myself.........

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 22, 2001.


Carlos, come on now, these laws were put in place for a reason. They were not just thought up to cripple business, if businesses were fair and honest in the first place the need for the laws would not have existed and would never have been made. My grandmother worked for Boeing for 34 years and two years before she was to retire they fired her with some trumped up excuse. They got away with it. They may have had a valid reason, but she was never given one and was given no warnings and her performance reports had all been very good up till that time. She was just one of hundreds of people who were within 3 years of retirement that this happened to. No one even pretended that this was anything more than the company getting out of paying retirement benefits that she had been paying into for decades. Due to overwhelming situations like this, laws were made to protect workers from such blatant mistreatment.

Businesses have a right to make a profit. Do you believe they have the right to screw their workers lives over for a profit? How far are they going to be allowed to go? Reverse child labor laws next, so 10 year old have to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week? How about coffee breaks and time for meals? Why should they give you paid vacations? A LOT of businesses do not give them now. Microsoft hires "temps" who work full time for years without benefits given to "full time workers". They were told when they were hired that after a certain time they would become regular employees with the benefits that came with the position. They were not. They were doing the same work as full time employees, were paid a lot less then full timers, got no benefits and had no job security. The attitude towards them was that they should be grateful that they got to work for Microsoft in the first place. It wasn't as if Microsoft could not afford to pay them or anything, they got away with it until they were taken to court by the workers who were being taken advantage of.

Why do you feel that businesses are in some way superior to the people who work for them? So people don't have to work for them if they don't like the conditions? Sure, except now all businesses can put these clauses in their contracts and individuals now have no choice in the matter. You can work under unfair conditions because all businesses can use the same unfair tactics.

I think people who have been supporting the republican administration, congress and republican supreme court are going to have to start admitting that they are going to unacceptable extremes in their big business ass kissing behavior.

Bush was not elected by a country of individual people who wanted all of the changes he is making. Don't you realize yet that they are not even considering the results their actions are going to have on the PEOPLE of this country? Bush said over and over "I trust you, the people of this country". BULL SHIT. He does not give a rats ass about the people in this country. He is only concerned with MONEY and those with BIG money and their wishes.

Bush thinks that whatever he wants is what should be done. He is one person. We a re a country of many people and he had better get his ego out of his ass and realize this. He can be taken out of office. He is not fit for office. He is not the leader of the people of this country, except for a few blind followers who choose not to face reality. He is an extremist who is under the assumption that he can do whatever he wants without consequences. This entire election and the results of his being placed into office is a travesty.

People like my grandmother will be fired just before retirement and have to get on their knees and beg (pray) for handouts from any religious organization funded to feed the homeless and hungry. When you end up getting screwed over by big business with no safety net and no legal protection, end up homeless and penniless (because you cannot go bankrupt so the money from the minumum wage job you finally got goes to pay the bills you ran up while working at the big company, you know, the medical bills caused by your wife giving birth to your 9th baby because birth control was outlawed and the insurance from your good job only provided the bare minumum coverage) with your children starving and stuck in inadequate schools because the majority of school financing and best teachers have gone to "private" schools rich parents can afford to pay to get their children into, it will be too late for you to try to do anything about it. You will be blacklisted from voting for not having a permanent address or for having a common minority name and having been removed from the voting lists without your knowledge and without notification and are considered too stupid to check your voting status every 6 months (something that has never before been necessary). Perhaps not, for if you are registered republican the felony lists were not compared to your name, they were only used to remove name from the democratic lists, after all, no minority would be a republican and republicans do not commit felonies, so there was no need to compare or remove any names off of them.

Perhaps it is time to open your eyes and see the difference between what Bush said during the campaign and what he is doing.

I see absolutly NOTHING that he has done for the people of this country, only one thing after the other he has done for the big businesses that financed his campaign. He was bought and paid for. Everything he has done so far has been to the advantage of big business and at the expence of the people. It is blatent and it is discusting.

And guess what people are to polite to come right out and say? HE LIED. With full intent and purpose, he lied about what he stood for and who he was going to work for. He had absolutly no intention to listen to the people of this country. He had no intention run his administration in a bipartisn way. He had no intention of being compassionate to the people of this country.

He lied about Gore lying.

He is running roughshod over everything this country has worked towards for the past 30 years. The supreme court is no better, they are going against the laws the people in this country have instituted for the protection of individuals. They have given up even the pretence of being fair and unbiased.

It is just a matter now of how long it will be before They and Bush are removed from their positions.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 22, 2001.



Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your Cheneys.

-- (LeonTrotsky@MayDay.Rave), March 23, 2001.

try reading=book of revelaton'' UNDERSTAND=THE BEAST-SYSTEM''

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), March 23, 2001.

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