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Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#21

Post by Bartweiss »

notyourday wrote: post #12
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 sen…

This seems like a particularly weird place to lay charges of activism.

The majority decision claims "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." That's either an activist position or an original intent position; it relies on comparing circumstances today to the circumstances Congress is presumed to have had in mind.

The Court's current originalists are textualists to a man, and have consistently rejected arguments of the form "this law's authors didn't anticipate modern conditions". But today, they decided to restrict a right provided by the text of the law, and did so by appealing to circumstance and intent. (edited for clarity)

Legislation was written from the bench today, and it wasn't Ginsburg doing it.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#22

Post by magicalist »

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…

In addition to giobox's points,

> This isn't disappointing at all as it reflects the state of the laws as they're currently on the books.

4 out of 9 supreme court justices disagree with the ruling, so this really isn't the narrative to go with.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#23

Post by onecooldev24 »

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.

Ohh yeah sure, employees should easily be allowed to harass employers by slowing down the justice process. And this place is suppose to be frequented by smart people, I am just amazed by the stupidity on this forum.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#24

Post by sykh »

jeffdavis wrote: post #19
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.

Will you believe this, that the court is not legislative in its actions, when the Janus ruling comes out? They are going to overrule decades of established labor laws.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#25

Post by camgunz »

notyourday wrote: post #12
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 sen…

If you read her dissent through to the end, she rightly points out that if the FAA were to hold over the NLRA then it would also hold over the Civil Rights Act, which is clearly not what Congress intended. See also her (well-cited) argument about specific vs. general legislation, as well the fact that the NLRA was written and enacted after the FAA. In fact, if you're on the side of "SCOTUS... starting to uplold the laws as they are on the books", then you're on Ginsburg's side here. Gorsuch & co. are really reaching.

The ruling today essentially says that if the FAA is ever in conflict with any other piece of legislation that it holds supreme. This is literally unprecedented.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#27

Post by gowld »

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?

Here's a 2010 data point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_...

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#28

Post by s2g »

magicalist wrote: post #22
koolba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In addition to giobox's points, > This isn't disappointing at all as it reflects the state of the laws as they're currently on the books. 4 out of 9 supreme court justices disagree with the ruling, so this really isn't the narrative to go with.

Kind of sad that if it's fucking people over in favor of corportations, you can always guess the 4.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#29

Post by emtel »

Bartweiss wrote: post #21
notyourday wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sen…

This seems like a particularly weird place to lay charges of activism. The majority decision claims "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." That's either an activist position or an original intent position; it relies on comparing circumstances today to the circumstances Congress is presume…

I'm pretty sure Scalia didn't join the majority in this decision.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#30

Post by s2g »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #5
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!

Replying to myself: Think about how many transactions--i.e., in legal terms, a contract--you participate in every day. Now imagine that every one of those contracts forced on you to essentially give up your access to the court system for resolving grievances with private companies. That's where I believe we're heading, especially now that it seems like the issue has been officially resolved (at least for jobs). It's…

Absolutely.

The 7th amendment is dead.

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