Last week, lawmakers laid the groundwork for a battle over consumer rights and forced arbitration that likely will play out through the spring. First, congressional Democrats introduced several bills to restore consumers’ right to hold corporations accountable in court for wrongdoing. Led by U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), lawmakers on March 7 introduced a slate …
Recently, forced arbitration clauses have spread into a wide variety of contracts that regular citizens ordinarily enter into. These include both consumer contracts, such as those for cellular phone service plans, and employment contracts signed at the start of a new job. Obstacles to fair and impartial dispute resolution are manifold in this coerced dispute …
Yesterday the Supreme Court granted certiorari in what could be an extremely important case addressing the intersection of mandatory arbitration and class actions. AT & T Mobility v. Concepcion, 2010 WL 303962, Docked 09-893 (May 24, 2010) poses the following question: “Whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts States from conditioning the enforcement of an arbitration …
To paraphrase comedian Henny Youngman’s famous one-liner, take my KBR, please. After all the bad press U.S. engineering and construction company KBR has received over the years for its operations in Iraq , both during its time as a Halliburton subsidiary and since, one might think it had learned a thing or two about how …
Yesterday, the union movement ramped up its attacks on the Chamber of Commerce over its “two-faced” approach to the Employee Free Choice Act’s provision requiring arbitration if a business won’t bargain in good faith after a union’s been chosen by workers. As the AFL-CIO Now blog observed: The latest Big Business tactic is to attack …
If you look close enough at an employment or credit card contract you’ll typically see some fine print sized like this that says something to the effect of, “By signing this contract both parties agree to submit to binding arbitration. Both parties acknowledge that if there is one or more disputed items that remain unresolved …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
