Supreme Court Hears Employee Arbitration Cases

With the recent addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench, employers are expected to prevail in the trio of suits that are presently before the U.S. Supreme Court despite arguments that most employees are unaware that they’ve signed an agreement to arbitrate when they were hired. A ruling against workers in these cases could result in major changes in how nearly all workplace disputes will be resolved, and how labor laws are enforced. Matthew Finkin, a professor at the University of Illinois, who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief, says that normally he would expect employers to argue in favor of resolving multiple similar disputes together, instead of going through many separate, individual arbitrations. Instead, Finkin says, employers are banking that individuals will simply not bring their cases, and employers will avoid public scrutiny of their workplace practices. Employers argue that individual disputes are resolved faster and cheaper. They say class-action suits can take years in the courts to resolve, and primarily benefit the lawyers who bring such cases.