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02/27/2020 | Forced Arbitration: A Corporate Attack on Workers’ Rights

NEW VIDEO: Fighting for Worker Justice & Corporate Accountability

RESTORE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR LAWBREAKING CORPORATIONS!

TAKE ACTION BY SIGNING THIS PETITION TO STAND WITH WORKERS.

The rapid rise of forced arbitration is a serious threat to hard-won workplace rights including minimum wage, earned sick leave, fair workweek laws, and anti-discrimination protections. Forced arbitration clauses are buried in the fine print of many employment contracts and strip workers of their right to join together in court to fight and expose corporate abuse and illegal practices. In short, forced arbitration is secretive, biased, and expensive. Because corporations set the rules and stack the deck against workers in arbitration, an estimated 98 percent of employment cases are abandoned by workers before they’re ever brought to court.

CPD affiliates and partners are advancing new mechanisms to enforce workplace rights and fight forced arbitration. This month, we released a new video which breaks down how corporations use forced arbitration to avoid justice when they violate workers' rights. Workers forced into arbitration are more likely to be struck by lightning than win against big corporations.

Further, we worked with the UCLA Labor Center and Partnerships for Working Families to release a brief about about successful models to deter corporate wrongdoing illustrating the powerful record of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) in addressing corporate lawbreaking and generating significant revenue for enforcement (in 2019 the agency collected over $88 million in PAGA penalties). Critically, PAGA also empowers workers to enforce their rights despite forced arbitration. The brief was covered by the San Francisco Chronicle and you can download and read it on our website.

Click here to learn more about our work on Forced Arbitration.