Rule of Law

On Monday, May 21st, 2018, The Supreme Court of United States made a big decision regarding employment. This 5-4 ruling allowed employers to ask employees to sign their right away to a class-action lawsuit. What does that mean? If you got an offer for a new job, the employer can make you sign an arbitration agreement where you waive your right to participate in a class-action lawsuit. They ruled in favor of the employers. If an employer is known for harassment, safety concerns and such, employees can’t band together to bring one lawsuit against the employer. Have you heard the phrase, “There is power in numbers”? That’s what this would prevent. Instead of bringing one lawsuit, each individual will have to bring their own lawsuit against the employer. Spend money on lawyers, taking time off their new job and more. Keep in mind, most companies either have a lawyer on staff or on retainer to take care of these things. They also have insurances that can payout for such lawsuits. I am no expert, but it seems that they want to discourage people from bringing in lawsuits because most people don’t want to go through the trouble of wasting time, money and energy for a small amount of money. Will this hold in the long term? Probably. Probably not, but that’s what you have to worry about right now. Can you choose not to sign it? Sure. If an employer has this agreement, you can choose to reject the offer if you want to and find another employer that doesn’t make you sign this agreement.