Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#11

Post by rayiner » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

This is really, really disappointing. Contracts are supposed to be fair for both sides. In isolation, meaning for one specific purchase or one specific job, they are. But what happens when every company and employer has this language in their contracts? What do they lose by including the language? They lose nothing!

> Contracts are supposed to be fair for both sides.

That's not really a prerequisite for contracts. Contracts will often reflect substantial negotiating leverage on one side versus the other (e.g. a contract for sale of a house where the seller just lost his job, or a contract for sale of stock where the seller really needs money due to an unforeseen emergency). That's not a reason not to enforce them.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#12

Post by notyourday » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #4

Purely as a matter of statutory construction, Ginsburg's dissent seems better reasoned.

Her dissent is "I wish I could write legislation from a bench and darn we don't have enough on our side".

It is great that SCOTUS is starting to uphold the laws as they are on the books. Frankly, the idea that not legislators but the courts get to write the laws should be abhorrent. Courts need to stick to "is this law contradict other laws and hence is invalid" decisions.

Want to change the law? Get congress and senate to pass a new law and have a president sign it.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#13

Post by mars4rp » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Time to pressure congress to change this. A lot of people see SCOTUS decisions and think the matter closed, but congress with the flick of a pen could completely ban arbitration for employee contracts. The employer/employee relationship is by its nature power imbalanced. If employers band together and all require arbitration (as they likely will via a standardised templated contract) employees cannot do much.

When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#14

Post by cookiecaper » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #8

nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

This is really, really disappointing. Contracts are supposed to be fair for both sides. In isolation, meaning for one specific purchase or one specific job, they are. But what happens when every company and employer has this language in their contracts? What do they lose by including the language? They lose nothing!

This isn't disappointing at all as it reflects the state of the laws as they're currently on the books. Desiring or determining a court ruling based upon what you'd like the law to be rather than how it's currently written opens the door for legislation from the bench. If workers want the law changed to ban arbitration clauses then they should ask their representatives to pass legislation to do exactly that. And if s…

We have a system that operates at the pace of 1776. That served us well for a long time, but since the post-war proliferation of mass media, it's hard to argue that it's adequate anymore.

You're right that people don't understand the way the separation of powers works, but the system badly needs to be revised. The world has totally transformed in the last 75 years and it's much smaller now. Political and legal feedback loops need to become much more responsive. One can see how it all worked when it would take weeks or months to get news of things like national election results, and when most people lived mostly self-sufficient agrarian lifestyles, but we don't live in that world anymore.

Our entire political system, including the functional ability for normal private individuals to seek and obtain useful legal relief, has ground to a halt over the last several decades. Technology has made the old methods increasingly bad fits for the modern era.

It'd be great if we could renovate the system before we fully convince the populace that the elements of good governance, like separation of powers and an independent judiciary, are necessarily linked to stunning and clear deprivations of fairness (of which binding arbitration is just one good example).

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#15

Post by gefh » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

fhayde wrote: post #7

From https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-285_q8l1.pdf > It is unlikely that Congress wished to confer a right to class or collective actions in §7, since those procedures were hardly known when the NLRA was adopted in 1935. Kind of funny they use this as justification considering everything else they've upheld that was adopted decades prior to this without knowledge of modern custom or technology. Convenie…

Yeah, I can't see them overturning the 2nd amendment even though the same logic applies.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#16

Post by e40 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

mars4rp wrote: post #13

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Time to pressure congress to change this. A lot of people see SCOTUS decisions and think the matter closed, but congress with the flick of a pen could completely ban arbitration for employee contracts. The employer/employee relationship is by its nature power imbalanced. If employers band together and all require arbitration (as they likely will via a standardised templated contract) employees cannot do much.

When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?

A long, long time. Sadly.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#17

Post by VikingCoder » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

mars4rp wrote: post #13

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Time to pressure congress to change this. A lot of people see SCOTUS decisions and think the matter closed, but congress with the flick of a pen could completely ban arbitration for employee contracts. The employer/employee relationship is by its nature power imbalanced. If employers band together and all require arbitration (as they likely will via a standardised templated contract) employees cannot do much.

When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?

Congress did things for people all the time:

Making it marginally easier for those with means to save some money by reducing their taxes... because they took away some essential service from those without means.

Which "helps motivate" the people without means to stop being so lazy. /s

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#18

Post by rocqua » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

How do arbitration clauses compare to 'no sue' clauses. By the second I mean contracts that state one party shall not sue the other for a given thing. As far as I know, 'no sue' clauses are unenforceable. It seems to me that arbitration clauses prevent workers from suing their employers which would essentially be a 'no sue' contract.

I don't think the courts would miss this, so I am probably wrong here somewhere. Would anyone care to correct me?

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#19

Post by jeffdavis » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Time to pressure congress to change this. A lot of people see SCOTUS decisions and think the matter closed, but congress with the flick of a pen could completely ban arbitration for employee contracts. The employer/employee relationship is by its nature power imbalanced. If employers band together and all require arbitration (as they likely will via a standardised templated contract) employees cannot do much.

+1

The supreme court is not a legislative body. It's fun when your side wins, but that's essentially the same as hoping for a benevolent dictator.

The most important SCOTUS cases are constitutional ones limiting the legislative branch, not becoming a second legislature.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#20

Post by rocqua » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #11

nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

This is really, really disappointing. Contracts are supposed to be fair for both sides. In isolation, meaning for one specific purchase or one specific job, they are. But what happens when every company and employer has this language in their contracts? What do they lose by including the language? They lose nothing!

> Contracts are supposed to be fair for both sides. That's not really a prerequisite for contracts. Contracts will often reflect substantial negotiating leverage on one side versus the other ( e.g. a contract for sale of a house where the seller just lost his job, or a contract for sale of stock where the seller really needs money due to an unforeseen emergency). That's not a reason not to enforce them.

AFAIK there are limits to that. Certainly, contracts are required to be reciprocal. That is, one cannot write a contract that states A gives stuff to B, without requiring B to give some form of compensation. This is why things are sometimes sold for $1 rather than gifted.

I think there are also 'no contracts can be made under duress' clauses that limit how much one can use leverage to unbalance a deal. Not sure what kind of limits there are to that though.