Perhaps open-source software licenses should start including a stipulation that anybody using open-source software in any product they produce or consume, must submit to arbitration for any software patent suits.
Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
61–70 of 181 posts
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm not sure what you're intending by this comment, but Scalia's been dead now for some time, and his replacement (who is ideologically close to Scalia's) wrote the decision.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The Janus ruling will be about whether public sector unions can force government employees to pays dues to their union. If you believe this is compelled speech, it doesn't matter if there are decades of laws -- they are invalid. There's decades of laws that made interracial marriage illegal (Loving v. Virginia), and the supreme court overruled them too. If the constitution forbids a government action then it's up to…
Yes, there are instances of decades of legal precedent being overturned. In the case of Janus though I think it's a bit different. For one, I think the argument that being forced to pay fair share dues constitutes compelled speech is not even specious. It's, on it's face, wrong in my opinion. So Janus appears from my perspective to be more on the legislative side. This is especially so given that Gorsuch in the ruling that the thread is nominally about said that it's up to the legislature to change things.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#64Time 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.
> congress with the flick of a pen could completely ban arbitration for employee contracts
The President is also involved (or a veto override). Neither seems likely in the near future.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?
That's a false dichotomy. Corporations are the basic units of the wealth-creation engine that gives Americans among the highest standards of living in the world, not to mention employs almost all of them. Doing what's good for the corporations is usually also what's good for people.
Maybe in some fantasy corporation-league version of America, but I see a constant stream of "oh, you lobbyists want concessions for your anonymous sponsors/donors/owners? Sure, always glad to get more votes paid for!"
The only way to keep the general populace from getting trampled as far as they will allow is to push back against all this.
I've said elsewhere, vote out every incumbent Congressperson. Once the current paid members are gone, if the new set appears to be voting by donor status, vote them out too.
Keep voting them out until we find a few decent souls who realize that we the people are serious about being represented, not sold.
I would use campaign contribution reports as a "who should be first out the door" list... individual personal donations of fixed maximum size only, everything else counts against.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I can't see them overturning the 2nd amendment even though the same logic applies.
You're mixing up two different things: does the new thing fall within the old language, and would the drafters have used different language had they known about the new thing. Is a semi-automatic rifle an "arm" as the term was understood in 1789? Yes, almost certainly, in the same way an aircraft carrier is a "ship" as the term was understood in 1789. If semi-automatic rifles had existed in 1789, would the framers st…
We don't care about what they thought, just what they wrote.
Uh, who's "we?" It sounds like you're describing textualism or strict constructionism, which are two of many types of judicial interpretation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_interpretation
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not GP but I sure will be. For the curious see [1] and [2] for more info about this case. Public sector unions are nothing but trouble and every step toward their destruction is a good thing. The very idea of having organizations funded by tax dollars that subsequently influence their own regulation, pay rates, benefits, and pensions with those same tax dollars in exchange for votes from their members is ludicrous. I…
Couldn’t agree more.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not GP but I sure will be. For the curious see [1] and [2] for more info about this case. Public sector unions are nothing but trouble and every step toward their destruction is a good thing. The very idea of having organizations funded by tax dollars that subsequently influence their own regulation, pay rates, benefits, and pensions with those same tax dollars in exchange for votes from their members is ludicrous. I…
Public sector unions are nothing but trouble and every step toward their destruction is a good thing.
It appears your position is that there is nothing good about public sector unions. Have they done no good? That's an extreme position. You say that every step toward their destruction is a good thing. I suppose that means you'd support illegal methods of destruction?
I'm in a public sector union. I pay union dues. That money comes from my pay and not taxpayers. My salary is paid for by the state but my dues come from my salary and are not part of my benefits. The union is not taxpayer funded. If you really think this then to the extent that my salary is used to pay for groceries does that make the supermarket partially taxpayer funded?
My union influences my workplace rules to the extent that they bargain my working conditions on my behalf. They have negotiators much more knowledgeable about negotiation than I am and they negotiate on my behalf. By law our workplace rules cover everyone whether or not they are in the union. It's reasonable to expect that everyone who benefits from the negotiation help pay for said negotiation.
Clearly, I'm not going to change your mind on the efficacy of unions; public or not. However, perhaps you will consider that your position is quite extreme. You can find no good?
I ask my liberal friends who decry Trump (as I do) can you name some good things he has done. Most can't. They are too extreme to even consider the other side. You sound like an extremist on this issue.
Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?
The last time the Democratic party had control of congress? e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Afforda... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_o... etc.
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Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If the Supreme Court overrules Abood in Janus, that'll be the Court doing its job to invalidate statutes that infringing Constitutional protections. Here, where there was no Constitutional concern, the Supreme Court did its job to give effect to a more specific Act of Congress (the FAA) over the more general policy in a different statute (the NLRA).
It is unreasonable in my opinion to consider Janus a constitutional issue. It's not a free speech issue even though it has been popularly cropped as such. People who benefit from collective bargaining ought to help pay for it.
I'm not a lawyer and you'll be able to cite a thousand cases to my one. My sister's neighbor is on the state Supreme Court where I live. He's said to me that a good lawyer can argue any case and cite a bunch of reasons to support his/her case.
For me the case is simple. The collectively bargained rules apply to everyone in the workplace. As such those who benefit from said bargaining ought to pay for it. This has been an established practice for many, many years. Each state has the right to negate this and many have enacted misnamed right to work laws. There is no compelling reason to change the current practice. Janus' speech is not currently threatened and the greater public interest should be the one that prevails. It won't though.