A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume • Hacker News Board

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#21

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

kenned3 wrote: post #16

Mirioron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we just lucky here, like with universal health care? You don't hear as much about European problems online, because they're spoken about in the respective nation's language. This means that it's hard to compare. Most European countries also have many problems like the US. Maybe not to quite the same extreme, but they do exist. The US does have a few things going for it though: very strong protections of speech,…

"a very strong protections of speech" I grew up in Canada, then moved to the US for 5 years before returning home to Canada. It always killed me when my US coworkers said teh same thing about "free speech" as i watched censored TV shows in the US which are not that way back in Canada. I think "free speech" on the US side is highly overrarted and if you look into it more seriously you will find many nations which are…

Misread your comment as “7 letter words you can’t say on TV”. I’ve spent way too long looking for offensive 7 letter words. It seems that for a word to be truely offensive it is usually very short.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#22

Post by lonelappde » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #9

DannyB2 wrote: post #2

> But a federal judge in San Francisco wasn’t willing to go along with it. The judge, William Alsup, ordered DoorDash in February to proceed with the American Arbitration Association cases and pay the fees. Ah! Gotta love judge Alsup. Back in SCO vs Novell, and in Oracle vs Google. > ... in a hearing, Judge Alsup questioned whether the company and its lawyers really believed that. > "Your law firm and all the defense…

What was his involvement in SCO vs Novell? He doesn't seem to be mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group,_Inc._v._Novell,_Inc .

Parent might have been thinking of Judge Jackson in the Microsoft antitrust case

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Penfield_Jackson

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#23

Post by jdmichal » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #4

The article mentions 6,000 arbitration cases against DoorDash amounted to $9 million in fees from the American Arbitration Association. That's $1,500 a pop! If you have a dispute with a company, and are bound by an arbitration clause, it seems like you have a $1,500 hammer to hit them with? (Assuming your agreement states that the company will front the fees). What happens if the arbitrator decides the case against y…

> Assuming your agreement states that the company will front the fees.

I'm not entirely sure they can agree to not front the fees without also potentially voiding arbitration. While money does mean a lot in court, there's a very strong sentiment that it should not be a barrier to entry. There's at least one case that went to appears where, when the plaintiff ran out of money and arbitration was canceled, the case was permitted into court:

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/06/15/1...

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#24

Post by azinman2 » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #17

I wonder why the issue of being able to waive away your rights - forced arbitration, non-competes, severance packages etc. never come up at the presidential campaign stage. Seems like this is pervasive enough to affect pretty much everyone. Or am I misunderstanding something here ?

Because it’s screws those with the least power the most.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#25

Post by cosmodisk » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #17

I wonder why the issue of being able to waive away your rights - forced arbitration, non-competes, severance packages etc. never come up at the presidential campaign stage. Seems like this is pervasive enough to affect pretty much everyone. Or am I misunderstanding something here ?

They won't be the people funding your presential campaign though... Obama's campaign did cost about one cool billion dollars. Even if you get a million of these guys,each would have to contribute $1000..I suspect Trumps campaign was even more expensive.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#26

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

While I like the general idea, I still think we need a wider answer to the question of companies like doordash. Employees (or whatever they are) won't get what they want this way any more than they would previously...

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#27

Post by wegs » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #13

mandelken wrote: post #6

As a European, reading these articles on arbitration, no-compete, required licenses, 'right-to-work', tipping, "gig work", firing over zoom, and so much more, it seems U.S. workers could really use some collective bargaining? Here unions are the obvious century-old solution to improve working conditions, why don't workers organize there? Are we just lucky here, like with universal health care?

Unions have suffered from a bad reputation in the United States over the past few decades. Some of it is deserved BTW; some big unions were/are corrupted and some were connected with organized crime. Even more innocently, unions have been quite conservative; as jobs and technology changed some were very resistant and fought modernization (requiring people who were not needed to be around). But a lot of it also stems…

Most of the bad reputation is deserved. Most US unions are horrible organizations. There are still some good unions, just not many.

That doesn't make the concept of a union bad. They worked much better 50 years ago, even. It's a great concept, but the implementation got corrupted over the years.

I don't think we'll fix unions' reputations without first fixing unions. And we really need more unions and more credible unions.

As a footnote, in my local school district, under coronavirus school closures, the teacher's union negotiated that the teachers get paid, but they don't need to remotely teach students. Some teachers continue teaching for some amount of time, but essentially on a volunteer basis. Many teachers are just sitting at home, doing nothing except for collecting a pay check.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#28

Post by Animats » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

Oh, it's even worse than that for companies. The 9th and 10th circuits have both agreed that if the defense refuses to pay for arbitration, plaintiff can go to court. They're no longer barred from suing at that point.

Incidentally, the AAA rules have some useful provisions in consumer disputes. Either party can request to transfer the case to small claims court. At least in California, that's not only cheaper, small claims courts tend to be pro-plaintiff. You get to be heard in person in your own county by a real judge.

[1] https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/Consumer_Rules_Web_0...

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#29

Post by phd514 » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

kenned3 wrote: post #16

Mirioron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we just lucky here, like with universal health care? You don't hear as much about European problems online, because they're spoken about in the respective nation's language. This means that it's hard to compare. Most European countries also have many problems like the US. Maybe not to quite the same extreme, but they do exist. The US does have a few things going for it though: very strong protections of speech,…

"a very strong protections of speech" I grew up in Canada, then moved to the US for 5 years before returning home to Canada. It always killed me when my US coworkers said teh same thing about "free speech" as i watched censored TV shows in the US which are not that way back in Canada. I think "free speech" on the US side is highly overrarted and if you look into it more seriously you will find many nations which are…

The FCC has obscenity regulations for broadcast TV in the US under the idea that the broadcast spectrum is owned by the people. Cable television has no such restrictions. That rationale holds up a lot less now than it did in the early days of broadcast television, but it's still a far cry from Canadian hate speech laws in which the expression of certain points of view is deemed a crime.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#30

Post by maxlybbert » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #9

DannyB2 wrote: post #2

> But a federal judge in San Francisco wasn’t willing to go along with it. The judge, William Alsup, ordered DoorDash in February to proceed with the American Arbitration Association cases and pay the fees. Ah! Gotta love judge Alsup. Back in SCO vs Novell, and in Oracle vs Google. > ... in a hearing, Judge Alsup questioned whether the company and its lawyers really believed that. > "Your law firm and all the defense…

What was his involvement in SCO vs Novell? He doesn't seem to be mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group,_Inc._v._Novell,_Inc .

SCO vs. Novell was in Utah, under Judge Kimball. But Alsup was impressive in Oracle vs. Google, noting that he had some familiarity with programming and calling out Math.max() as the kind of function where scènes à faire and merger probably apply.