When Arbitration Is Mandatory, Workers Don’t Complain

Soon the Supreme Court will decide the legality of employment contracts that require workers to arbitrate their disputes individually. Alison Frankel argues that when employees are prevented from acting collectively corporations are less likely to be held accountable for mistreating them. She quotes an article in the North Carolina Law Review, claiming that workers almost never bring individual arbitration claims against their bosses, and comparing mandatory employment arbitration to a black hole, in which workers’ prospective claims simply vanish.

On February 12, the attorneys general of every state, plus the AGs of the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, sent a letter to House and Senate leaders, calling for Congress to enact legislation to exempt sexual harassment victims from mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts. “The secrecy requirements of arbitration clauses … disserve the public interest by keeping both the harassment complaints and any settlements confidential,” the letter said. “This veil of secrecy may then prevent other persons similarly situated from learning of the harassment claims so that they, too, might pursue relief.”