Thankfully some law firms have taken the approach to overwhelm Arise with individual arbitration claims. Arise likely calculated in to their model as a cost of business expense, so the best that can be done is to make that expense grow.
If you feel strongly against arbitration clauses, activism to get people to use them is the fastest way to kill them as the cost benefit will quickly become a negative.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135474/doordash-workers...
Ok not really almost, but for a brief second.
In the meantime create a tool to allow for mass arbitration actions.
Or forbid it entirely.
What exactly is the problem with writing a law to stop an abusive practice?
I see mandatory arbitration as a trade-off, and would simply prefer that people take that kind of clause into account when they transact with others.
The root cause is the demand for that type of labor is dwarfed by supply for type of labor, and the long lasting solution would be to provide those people with better options.
Plus again scale shifts profits away from labor: https://economics.mit.edu/files/12979
AT&T and Arise are not people. People made these decisions and put Tami in this position. We should use their names.
But getting to the core of your point, how would you allocate blame? Is the CEO responsible for every mistake? Do you part it out to various levels of management, based on their involvement with this specific case? Do you think it's better if more corporations copy Google's approach, and outsource all the low-wage work to avoid bring blamed for problems?
To be clear, I am not sure who is to blame for what, but I think the real problem is a shortage of opportunities for people at the bottom of the corporate ladder (as well as for those struggling to get on it). The average HNer isn't protected from exploitation by laws, they are protected by their BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement).
In general with larger corporations this feels like it makes the most sense. With resources like LinkedIn it should be a lot easier to determine the person or person(s) in charge of these decisions along with the CEO.
The degree to which both costs and risk are shifted onto workers is at times astonishing:
“After paying about $1,500 for home office equipment: a computer, two headsets and a phone line dedicated to Arise; after paying Arise to run a check on her background; after passing Arise’s voice-assessment test and signing Arise’s nondisclosure form; after paying for and passing Arise’s introductory training, to which she devoted three days, unpaid; after paying for and passing a certification course to provide customer service for Arise client AT&T, to which she devoted 44 unpaid days; after then being informed she had to get more training yet — an additional 10 days, for which she was told she would be paid, but wasn’t; and then, after finally getting a chance to sign up for hours and do work for which she would be paid (except for her time spent waiting for technical support, or researching customer issues, or huddling with supervisors), Tami Pendergraft spent three weeks fielding telephone calls from AT&T customers, after which she received a single paycheck.
For $96.12.”