A little good news

Regular readers will know that I'm not a big fan of forced abritration--clauses that require both workers and consumers to go to arbitration to settle disputes with employers and companies we do business with, rather than file class action lawsuits.  It's a rigged game and corporations do much better than the little guys under arbitration .

Well, this week the Seventh Circuit ruled that employees can sue their employers in class action lawsuits, even if said employers forced their employees to to sign away such a right.

Somebody done fucked up--the little guys won....

While the ruling is certain to be subject to appeals, with the Supreme Court currently at a 4-4 split (if tied the ruling automatically defers to the lower court outcome) and more than likely a Democrat will be nominating that all important fifth vote, it might be just another nail in the coffin of forced arbitration.

And with the CFPB working diligently to end all consumer forced arbitration, we could soon be saying buh-bye to a heinous business practice.

Peace,
emaycee

Another reason we need to keep the White House

As if we needed one...

Unbeknownst to many Americans, far too many businesses are now adding arbitration clauses to their terms of doing business with them.  Credit card companies, iTunes, banks, and numerous others are basically saying, as a consumer, you have to agree to take any issues with them to an arbitrator instead of a court of law and jury of your peers or they won't do business with you.  The reason?  You guessed it--you'll win a lot less often and win a lot less money than you would before a jury of your peers.  It's a fact that class action lawsuits punish bad business practices more and result in better ones.  It's basically a rigged game.

The last two jobs I applied for--including the one I have now--required me to agree to arbitration for any disputes before I had so much as put my name on an application form (so much for me believing either of these employers gave two shits about me as an employee!).  We recently bought a used car and I was surprised to find when I got home that I had agreed to arbitration though no one at the dealership had spoken one word to me about it (make sure to read the fine print kiddies!).

Last week, Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put forth a rule that bars financial firms from having mandatory arbitration clauses.  The CFPB does not need either the President's signature or the votes of the republican controlled Senate and House to pass this rule.  While this is only a start, it is hoped that eventually it will lead to an end to arbitration clauses of any stripe.

Should republicans win the White House, within the first ten minutes of taking office (probably a slight exaggeration) they will disband the CFPB--and with it, any chance we consumers have against Big Business.

Remember, Elizabeth Warren created the CFPB because she cares about us, not Corporate America.

Republicans cannot make the same claim.

Peace,
emaycee

Blood simple

Though most Americans don't know it, the courts over the last thirty years have put a serious hamper (specifically, though not singlehandedly through, AT &T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors) on our ability to seek recourse against corporations via the courts.  With a simple click of your mouse on one of those Terms of Service agreements, you often sign away your rights to sue, replacing it with an arbitrtation hearing, with the arbiter being chosen by the corporation.  Which is like playing a board game where you have to roll the dice, but your opponent gets to choose his numbers from the dice (also known as, heads I win, tails you lose).

David Atkins discussed this in a piece at Hullabaloo yesterday, and posited that one day we would have laws against it and wonder why we ever let ourselves suffer through it.

Myself, I wonder how long before someone realizes that the deck is stacked and starts blowing corporate offices up as a means of extralegal recourse.

My guess is not very fucking long.

Peace,
emaycee