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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 complete

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.

mars4rp 8y ago
When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations?
- e40 8y ago
  A long, long time. Sadly.
- VikingCoder 8y ago
  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
- gowld 8y ago
  Here's a 2010 data point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_...
  - imglorp 8y ago
    And a 2018 data point: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-equifax-cfpb/exclusive-u-s-consumer-protection-official-puts-equifax-probe-on-ice-sources-idUSKBN1FP0IZ#ref https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-equifax-cfpb/exclusiv... So it used to be okay but in the new climate, CFPB has been gutted and is now the Corporation Financial Protection Bureau.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- rayiner 8y ago
  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.
  - zentiggr 8y ago
    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.
    - spaginal 8y ago
      If you want to reduce corporate influence, reduce the size and influence of government. The more a central authority takes and dictates, the more lobbying and money will be the influence that runs them. When you have a powerbase of politicians that can make or break conpanies, industries, and entire regions with a law or regulation, you will naturally have players interested in that space working for their own interests above all else.
      - s73v3r_ 8y ago
        That's not going to reduce corporate influence at all. It'll do the opposite. Power abhors a vacuum. If government cedes power somewhere, who do you think is going to pick it up?
      - zentiggr 8y ago
- jonas21 8y ago
  The last time the Democratic party had control of congress? e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act 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/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Afforda... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_o... etc.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mindslight 8y ago
    Re #3 - Could you please explain how penalizing people for choosing to not patronize certain corporations fits that criteria? Because that seems like a huge boon to the corporations, basically cementing their positions and outweighing the procedural concessions they traded.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations? It's certainly not going to do anything if the people assume advocacy is a lost cause and give up without even trying.
jeffdavis 8y ago
+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.
- sykh 8y ago
  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.
  - dantheman 8y ago
    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 the supreme court to overrule it.
    - sykh 8y ago
      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.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    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).
onecooldev24 8y ago
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.
- bradleyankrom 8y ago
  based on your comment history, your whole schtick seems to be insulting the people on HN. why are you here?
  - onecooldev24 8y ago
    Just for entertainment.
gnicholas 8y ago
> 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.
djsumdog 8y ago
The essential and influential backers for Congress is industry. Congress is not really responsible or beholden to its replaceable selectorate. I don't think people hold enough influence to hire the lobbying to see this change. Another comment mentioned how California is considering arbitration in legislation. With their massive engineering and startup culture, I think employees there as a bloc have a tremendous influence for very specific employee rights (also why there is so much legislation against non-competes there as well). That doesn't really exist in the rest of the country. You can't really just "vote the bums out" when all politics depends on various degrees of corruption, no matter how democratic the country. I mean really, you need more of the people to hold more of the income; therefore less income inequality for all. That way you move more of the replaceables into the influentials.
debacle 8y ago
Employees can (and should) band together as well.
kevin_b_er 8y ago
The Republican Party supports forced arbitration against the public and they are currently in power. Here is them overturning attempts to protect the public with courts of law: https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/10/25/republicans-overturn-arbitration-rules-that-would-have-protected-consumers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/10/25/republic...

mars4rp 8y ago

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

e40 8y ago
A long, long time. Sadly.
VikingCoder 8y ago
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
gowld 8y ago
Here's a 2010 data point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_...
- imglorp 8y ago
  And a 2018 data point: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-equifax-cfpb/exclusive-u-s-consumer-protection-official-puts-equifax-probe-on-ice-sources-idUSKBN1FP0IZ#ref https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-equifax-cfpb/exclusiv... So it used to be okay but in the new climate, CFPB has been gutted and is now the Corporation Financial Protection Bureau.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 8y ago
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.
- zentiggr 8y ago
  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.
  - spaginal 8y ago
    If you want to reduce corporate influence, reduce the size and influence of government. The more a central authority takes and dictates, the more lobbying and money will be the influence that runs them. When you have a powerbase of politicians that can make or break conpanies, industries, and entire regions with a law or regulation, you will naturally have players interested in that space working for their own interests above all else.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      That's not going to reduce corporate influence at all. It'll do the opposite. Power abhors a vacuum. If government cedes power somewhere, who do you think is going to pick it up?
    - zentiggr 8y ago
jonas21 8y ago
The last time the Democratic party had control of congress? e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act 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/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Afforda... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_o... etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 8y ago
  Re #3 - Could you please explain how penalizing people for choosing to not patronize certain corporations fits that criteria? Because that seems like a huge boon to the corporations, basically cementing their positions and outweighing the procedural concessions they traded.
kinsomo 8y ago
> When was the last time Congress did something for the people against corporations? It's certainly not going to do anything if the people assume advocacy is a lost cause and give up without even trying.

jeffdavis 8y ago

+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.

sykh 8y ago
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.
- dantheman 8y ago
  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 the supreme court to overrule it.
  - sykh 8y ago
    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.
- rayiner 8y ago
  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).

onecooldev24 8y ago

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.

bradleyankrom 8y ago
based on your comment history, your whole schtick seems to be insulting the people on HN. why are you here?
- onecooldev24 8y ago
  Just for entertainment.

gnicholas 8y ago

> 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.

djsumdog 8y ago

The essential and influential backers for Congress is industry. Congress is not really responsible or beholden to its replaceable selectorate. I don't think people hold enough influence to hire the lobbying to see this change. Another comment mentioned how California is considering arbitration in legislation. With their massive engineering and startup culture, I think employees there as a bloc have a tremendous influence for very specific employee rights (also why there is so much legislation against non-competes there as well). That doesn't really exist in the rest of the country. You can't really just "vote the bums out" when all politics depends on various degrees of corruption, no matter how democratic the country. I mean really, you need more of the people to hold more of the income; therefore less income inequality for all. That way you move more of the replaceables into the influentials.

debacle 8y ago

Employees can (and should) band together as well.

kevin_b_er 8y ago

The Republican Party supports forced arbitration against the public and they are currently in power. Here is them overturning attempts to protect the public with courts of law: https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/10/25/republicans-overturn-arbitration-rules-that-would-have-protected-consumers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/10/25/republic...