SCOTUS CUTS CLASS | RBG Takes The Gloves Off | No More Class Actions Could Mean No More #MeToo
May 22, 2018
CUTTING CLASS
|The Supreme Court yesterday handed down a decision that is good for big business, but not so good for the little guy. Ruling 5 to 4, the justices found that employees can no longer sue companies with class-action suits. Listen to NPR’s Nina Totenberg report on the decision.
THE GLOVES ARE OFF
|CNN’s Joan Biskupic notes in her latest that JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG came out swinging on Monday when she took the unusual step of protesting the majority opinion from the bench. Wearing her dissenting collar, she said in court, “Nothing compels the destructive result the court reaches today” after 80 years of federal labor law had sought “to place employers and employees on more equal footing.” Biskupic notes that the tone of her dissent, along with the fact that some of the term’s more controversial cases are yet to be decided, indicate that it’s likely we’ll see even more forceful dissents from the court’s liberals in the coming month.
A LOSING FIGHT
|“Liberals—in the media, Congress and the courts—have been mounting an assault on arbitration agreements, and on Monday they lost a big one at the Supreme Court.” To say the least. The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal reviews the court’s decision and defends its ultimate outcome. “A 5-4 ruling the other way would have abrogated hundreds of thousands of employment contracts and sent trial lawyers to the races. What a difference a single justice makes.”
ME TOO NO MORE
|It’s possible that the biggest losers of the SCOTUS decision on forced arbitration could be women — or more specifically, women who have survived sexual harassment in the workplace. Cora Lewis and Chris Geidner with Buzzfeed report the decision comes as a blow to potential cases that may come about following the #MeToo movement and affect workers’ rights to come forward together with charges of discrimination in the workplace.
IT'S ALWAYS BETTER WHEN WE'RE TOGETHER
|The Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times is urging Congress to step in after the Monday SCOTUS ruling and restore workers’ ability to seek redress in courts either individually or as a group. The Ed Board asserts, “Requiring workers to press their arbitration cases individually makes it considerably harder for them to fight wage theft and other abuses. A single employee with a complaint over small-scale wage theft — a few hours of unpaid overtime a week, for instance — isn’t likely to go to the expense of fighting it. And lawyers aren’t likely to take on cases over small damages. But an entire workforce joining together to pursue a common complaint as a group is more likely to gain traction and narrow the workplace power imbalance.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier On Employers — And Harder On Workers
The Washington Post“The already meager rights of American workers just got significantly smaller, thanks to the Supreme Court. It ruled this morning that employers can use contracts with workers to ban them from joining class-action lawsuits — and to mandate individual arbitration in the event of disputes. The decision came in a case that pitted two conflicted federal statutes against one another.”
The Supreme Court v. Your Paycheck
The New York Times“The economy has been growing for almost 10 straight years. The unemployment rate has fallen below 4 percent for the first time since 2000. And yet wage growth remains stubbornly mediocre. How could that be? It’s a complicated topic, and there is no single answer. But the power of American companies, relative to the power of workers, seems to be a big part of the story. Companies are bigger than they used to be — sometimes dominant in their own particular industry — and labor unions are far weaker. If workers don’t like their paycheck, they often don’t have any good way to demand more money or find a higher-paying job.”
Neil Gorsuch Just Demolished Labor Rights
Slate“Gorsuch’s opinion in Epic System will have an immediate impact on workers. It effectively legalizes low-level wage theft; Juno Turner, a partner at the workers’ rights firm Outten & Golden, told me that it ‘gives a free pass for companies to break the law,’ because “employers can now cheat workers with little risk that employees will enforce their rights.” The decision was predictable—the Supreme Court’s conservatives have already eviscerated the right of consumers to file class actions—but it is still nothing less than catastrophic for workers across the country.”
Supreme Court Deals A Blow To Workers
The New York Times“The Supreme Court has just told the nation’s workers: If you’re underpaid at work, or if you face discrimination on the job, you’re on your own. Federal labor law protects the right of workers to join together to improve their conditions, whether through a union or other means. But the court has now carved out a big exception to that longstanding principle.”
OTHER NEWS
Blue States Strike First Against Awaited Anti-Union Court-Ruling
POLITICO“New York and New Jersey officials are pursuing an end-run around Janus v. AFSCME, a case that could give government workers across all states the option of declining to pay union fees even if they benefit from that union’s contract negotiations. Pro- and anti-union partisans alike anticipate the court is likely to rule against the unions — a decision that labor leaders fear will shrink their bank accounts and, in turn, their power.”
Ahead Of A Key Supreme Court Decision, America's Largest Teachers Union Slashes Budget By $50 Million, Projects That 300,000 Members May Leave
The74“The nation’s largest teachers union plans to reduce its budget by $50 million in anticipation of an unfavorable verdict in Janus v. AFSCME, a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in February that challenges the right of government unions to charge non-members for representing them. When delegates to the National Education Association meet in Minneapolis in July, union leaders will introduce a two-year budget that cuts expenditures by $50 million, an estimated 13 percent reduction from this year.”