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A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

nytimes.com

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Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#31

Post by dathinab »

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…

Wikipedia:

> only prevents government restrictions on speech, not restrictions imposed by private individuals or businesses unless they are acting on behalf of the government.

Which means the US right of free speech is somewhat weak compared to some other countries.

Especially it means that any company working "in favor" of the government but not "for it" could very well restrict free speech.

I never understood why anyone from the US think they have a "very strong protection" of free speech.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#32

Post by manfredo »

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 "censored" TV shows are really just the networks not wanting to piss off their advertisers. There is little to no censorship in the sense that the government actually prevents you from publishing something - especially now that almost all media is internet or cable. The last area where government actually decided content was with broadcast television, since the government got to decide how to use a limited number of frequencies.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#33

Post by tobinfricke »

maxlybbert wrote: post #30
dllthomas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> as the kind of function where scènes à faire and merger probably apply.

I had to look this up -

»Scène à faire (French for "scene to be made" or "scene that must be done"; plural: scènes à faire) is a scene in a book or film which is almost obligatory for a genre of its type. In the U.S. it also refers to a principle in copyright law in which certain elements of a creative work are held to be not protected when they are mandated by or customary to the genre.«

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc%C3%A8nes_%C3%A0_faire

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#34

Post by labster »

mehrdada wrote: post #20
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…

Funny his middle name is Haskell

Looks like you’re one of today’s lucky 10000:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#35

Post by cardiffspaceman »

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…

> I think "free speech" on the US side is highly overrarted

I think it is properly rated. If you only have restrictions against vocabulary then you still have all the other liberty and you can advocate a repeal of the law that bugs you.

I suspect the censorship you were noticing was self-censorship in order to avoid adverse public reaction.

A legendary animated show spells out that you can only use the word "shit" metaphorically, e.g. "I feel like shit". I have to admit that most of the time I prefer people would go easy on my ears if they have to talk literally about defecation.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#36

Post by function_seven »

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 ?

I think because the issue seems too theoretical to most people. I'm betting that most people have never felt a negative impact from forced arbitration clauses, or non-compete agreements. Anecdotally, I've never once felt the need to take a company to court, only to be stymied by an arbitration clause. Nor have I been prevented from getting hired due to a non-compete. And I don't think I know anyone who has.

I'm not saying these aren't valid and serious issues. Just that they're not day-to-day matters in the same way that healthcare, taxes, gas prices, or housing costs are. They're the type of issues that nobody thinks about until it bites them one day.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#37

Post by Reelin »

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 "seven words" only applies to _broadcast_ mediums (television and radio) because of the limited shared medium thing. I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning, but that's life.

More generally, protections against the government for personal speech are more complete in the US (both in principle and in practice) than any other country I'm aware of. A few examples might be the Westboro Baptist Church or the infamous Brandenburg v. Ohio case. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio)

(My view is necessarily US-centric though, so do feel free to point out any counterexamples I might not be aware of.)

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#38

Post by cperciva »

lostlogin wrote: post #21
kenned3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

A term used in reference to African Americans comes to mind, although maybe it's stretching to count the plural of an offensive 6 letter word.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#39

Post by tssva »

wegs wrote: post #27
gumby wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

Are you sure it was the union which forced the district not to remote teach? I live in an area where teachers are not unionized and the teachers are still getting paid and not teaching. The school district has signed contracts with the teachers which doesn't have any terms which stop payment because the schools close during the year and the district is not requiring remote learning because of equal access issues.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#40

Post by manfredo »

This strategy does result in increased upfront costs for companies. But this sort pile-on strategy seems like it could be countered with arbitration agreements that aren't subject to any sort of timeline, or arbitration agreements that preclude use of automated complaint filing systems.

Fundamentally, this strategy of inundating the company with claims only works because it's more expensive for the company to respond to an arbitration dispute than it is for an employee or customer to file one. If that asymmetry goes away, this strategy no longer works. I could see a company witness a spike in complaints, especially if the complaints are filed from an automated system, and conclude that these complaints would likely not result in lawsuits if arbitration was rejected. Now the onus is back on the complainant to actually go forth with the lawsuit.

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