Forced Arbitration: A Corporate Attack on Workers’ Rights

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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 arbitration, companies often choose and pay the private arbitrator; there is no public record and no meaningful chance to appeal the arbitrator’s decision. Workers win less often and are awarded less compensation in arbitration than in court. 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.

Corporate use of forced arbitration clauses is expected to spike sharply following last year’s Supreme Court decision in Epic Systems. By 2024, more than 80 percent of private-sector, non-union workers will have forced arbitration clauses blocking them from court. Soon, only a small minority of American workers will be able to sue their employers when they experience workplace violations.

CPD affiliates and partners are advancing new mechanisms to enforce workplace rights and fight forced arbitration. Make the Road New York, Working Washington, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, Maine People’s Alliance, Rights & Democracy, and other allies are leaders in advancing the whistleblower enforcement model as a state policy solution in six campaign states (OR, ME, MA, NY, WA, and VT). The proposed legislation, which authorizes workers to initiate actions on behalf of the state for violations of labor law, would strengthen public enforcement agencies and give them new tools to partner with workers and community organizations. With this policy, and with the advocacy and organizing work of our partners, CPD hopes to realize a new vision of effective enforcement of workplace rights that centers workers and people’s organizations.