This is exactly the sort of thing unions are supposed to protect people from. If something like this happened in my country there would be a general strike and the country would be at a standstill.
That sounds too good, and too progressive, to be true. Which country do you live in?
To clarify: by something like this I meant legislation that allows behavior like this to be legal. A single company acting badly would lead to a local strike, probably not a general strike (those are for forcing government policy changes).
This, IMO, seems to have coincided with the Citizens United decision. Since that time Corporations have had many favorable outcomes from both parties.
Specifically, President Obama signed an executive order making arbitration clauses in employment cases unenforceable: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
The next president then reversed this. There are extremely clear distinctions between the parties, and this issue is actually a perfect example.
Just out of curiosity: This is very uncommon in modern democracies, isn't it?
In most European countries (and maybe also in the US?) each newly elected government shows enough respect for the previous government by not reversing laws established just 1-3 years ago. They usually either concentrate on different topics, or restrict themselves to refinements and corrections of existing laws.
And there's some good reason for that: You don't want a country's set of laws switching between two versions every 4-5 years without making any progress.
However, since that taboo has been broken by now, maybe the next US president would have the courage to do the same with everything the current president did?
OTOH, the US having both a weak party system and a separation of power system makes it so that, to return to the upthread question about modern democracies, it does a lot more through executive orders than many modern democracies, which often have a strong-parties parliamentary system or a weaker Presidency, so that the executive has either less ability or less motivation to issue executive orders for matters that might be directly addresses by legislation.
Obama did a lot more through executive orders than his predecessors, in large part due to Congress obstructing all policy much more than its predecessors. IIRC, at a certain point he turned to executive orders to implement policy the best he could.
Also, most other modern democracies use parliamentary systems, in which the executive always has the majority in the legislature. In those cases, executive orders are less needed because the legislature and executive are much more likely to agree.
in this case, it only applied to companies that had contracts with the federal government for more than $1 million. basically, Obama ordered his departments to stop doing business with companies that had certain arbitration clauses. Trump removed this restriction.
i would expect a ton of Trump's executive orders to be overturned if the next president is a Democrat.
it's much harder and less likely to repeal an actual law passed by Congress.
I wouldn't expect most executive orders to stay the same here if the president changes parties. But that's a statement about what I expect, not about how things ought to be.
It was about a group who made a "documentary" about hilary clinton and were banned from releasing it near the election.
> It means that citizens don't lose their free speech rights when they form groups.
That's basically what the court's majority opinion stated. But the dissenting opinion also stated that the ruling provides more opportunities for corruption and for laws to be "bought and sold". So to say that GP's comments are "Not evenly remotely true" is disingenuous.
Dark money can be used for purposes akin to bribery since the speech of the group has been interpreted as political influence. While the money doesn't go directly to the candidate, it is used for their benefit or detriment during elections.
It just so happens that outside political spending has risen dramatically since the SCOTUS Citizens United decision in 2009.[0]
... even when those groups are legally obligated to act in service of a profit-driven corporate agenda. It's not really 'free' speech when you take the labor of your employees and use it to promote policy that directly conflicts with their interests.
You shouldn't be able to sign a contract that waives your right to sue your employer if they discriminate against you.
That's true, if the goal is to settle a specific unique dispute between two parties.
The problem is that arbitration in the US isn't used as strategy to settle such disputes, it's used to keep disputes secret and divide-and-conquer wronged parties to make dispute settlement impractical for them. Basically, it serves to tip the scales further in favor of the largest, savviest players.
In effect, the ability to sign away those rights generally, rather than in response to settling a specific incident of wrongdoing, gives employers terminating a employees an incentive to fuck them over so as to maximize leverage.
Perhaps better is something where anybody signing away the right to sue over discrimination has to do it under the supervision of the state's workplace anti-discrimination regulator? That would remove the information asymmetry that the employer has here.
Please, no. I can already predict the outcome: government bureaucracy slows down the whole process to a standstill, corruption/kickbacks become the norm. Meanwhile, employees still keep getting screwed over.
That's the point. That shouldn't be possible. I should not have to waive my rights to collect severance. That should just be given by default.
We deserve better, people. Richie McJobsCreator isn't going to just give away money for better working conditions at his company to a bunch of whiny nerds and unfashionable geezers. That could have otherwise gone straight into the owners' pockets, to... er... create more jobs!
If we can't get the 22-year old naïfs to join up with the 40+ greyhairs, they're also going to work 18 years and then receive discriminatory firings and have trouble with rehiring only halfway to their retirement age. Did you want to have kids and help pay for their tuition? How will you feel when you get fired for being too old, just as your kids are taking their entrance exams?
Wake up. Consider unions, or figure out how to pressure your politicians. Definitely think twice about working for a company that has no older employees. If you wait until you get your pink slip, and I have already been unemployable due to excessive experience for a decade or more, I won't be much help to you. I'll also feel obligated to say "told you so" every time you drop spare change in my cup.
It feels like somebody drove contract law to a very strange place. Can we sign away rights to fundamental freedoms and become slaves?
In civilized countries, it can't: binding arbitration is unenforceable in Canada, Europe, Japan, etc. This is purely an American problem.
For example, Germany actually asserts a civil right requiring that every employee have access to at least 4 hours of daylight every day. In the US, no such law would be respected or enforced, given the latitude granted corporate misbehavior.
Even if an explicit amendment to that effect were asserted in our Constitution, still our courts would gladly entertain the redefinition of every part of that statute, from "employee" to "daylight" to "4 hours".
This widespread institutional tolerance of legalistic weaseling by haves to overwhelm civil rights of the have-nots is quite uncivilized, there's no better word for it.
In this case, IBM's malefactions toward elders is a perfect illustration of civil abuse. For this and the sundry other ways the company has victimized its staff and customers for decades, IBM richly deserves no less than a death sentence.
I'm very interested, but my google-fu is not good enough apparently.
Most rules are available at https://www.baua.de/DE/Angebote/Rechtstexte-und-Technische-R... and a good summary is at http://publikationen.dguv.de/dguv/pdf/10002/i-7007.pdf
Are you sure you aren't mixing up binding arbitration with something else?
Edit: it sounded like you were talking about arbitration in a more general context than just employment contracts. If you are just talking about employment contracts than you are probably right (except possible for Canada, where there seems to be case law going both ways, so it seems to depend on the particulars of what is in dispute and how the contract is written).
Your employer cant say ah you must use my mate Saul the solicitor that did my last house purchase who I know from the golf club.
"In France, as a general rule, arbitration concerning individual employment contracts is prohibited. This holds true even in cases where the parties have included an arbitration agreement and a valid choice of law clause designating that foreign law applies to the entirety of the employment contract. Such a strict interpretation is seen as a public policy measure intended to protect employees who are considered to be in a necessarily weaker bargaining position compared to their employers. By giving Labor Courts the unique competency to adjudicate such matters, France can effectively safeguard its workforce.
Similar interests motivate protective regulatory schemes in most European Union (EU) nations where, as we will discuss, the prevalence of arbitration in labor and employment disputes remains limited and political weariness towards the practice pervades. "
If an ex-employee wants to break a contract, they can do so. But they must return the severance payment.
There is a risk of Specific Performance, but that seems inapplicable here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance
that's a very perverse perspective, and is exactly the sentiment a multi-national corporation like IBM would want you to have.
a job is an opportunity for two parties on equal footing to make a favorable exchange: my labor for your cash. it's a classic example of a capitalistic win-win. it's an opportunity for me to ply my trade, to further develop my expertise so that my offerings are more attractive to others and i can make more money. it's an opportunity for you to further your business objectives, widen your offerings, and widen your reach.
slavery is ownership. it's callous and flippant to make such a correlation to work for hire.
Chattel slavery is ownership, but slavery extends beyond just chattel slavery.
I can't get phone or internet access at my home through any of the providers without an arbitration agreement of some kind.
It stops being an optional legal agreement when you have no choice....
> But it doesn't have one AFAIK.
It's not markdown, and the only thing we have is a code block.
I've re-formatted for an even slimmer screen :D
> No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
And shitty unescapable emphasis which fucks up as often as it succeeds.
Here is an example using blocks wrapped to 40. How is this on mobile?
>This is a top level quote
second level quote something about the
quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
poodle
third level quote the fox was Scottish
and wearing a kilt, and nothing else.
fourth level quote when he jumped over
the poodle she saw his junk and
complined to HR
fifth level the fox got in trouble for
harassement, and the poodle got in
trouble for cultural insensitivity to
Scots
sixth level also the company got in
trouble with OSHA for putting the
poodle's workstation in a place where
others had to jump over her to get in
and out of the building
No, it's how a code block is rendered on this site. Abusing that for quotes is not really a good idea. (It's not that great for code, either, but it's tolerable for very small snippets, and the ones it's not good for are probably better hosted elsewhere and linked than embedded in a comment anyway.)
How did IBM get around the legal requirement for the disclosures? With a move that even critics acknowledge is ingenious.
The company’s pre-2014 layoff documents required employees receiving severance to waive all bias claims based on “race, national origin, ancestry, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital status, age... disability, medical condition, or veteran status.” The new documents deleted “age” from the waiver list. In fact, they specifically said employees were not waiving their right when it came to age and could pursue age discrimination cases against the company.
But, the new documents added, employees had to waive the right to take their age cases to court. Instead, they had to pursue them through private arbitration. What’s more, they had to keep them confidential and pursue them alone. They couldn’t join with other workers to make a case.
Forced arbitration continues to be an awful thing that companies foist on employees to strip them of their rights.