7 ms·

Over 100 Riot Games Employees Walked Out to End Forced Arbitration

48 points by smacktoward 8y ago

0x70dd 8y ago
Is there an upside of arbitration for employees? From what I read it's mostly for the benefit of the company. How is it even legal to forcefully take away the right of settling matters in court?
- thwythwy 8y ago
  because Scalia.
- aeternus 8y ago
  The upside is lower cost for both parties. Courts mostly require a lawyer to successfully navigate. The goal of civil court is to enforce contracts. If both parties agree via a contract to solve any disagreements with 3rd party arbitration, why wouldn't that be legal?
  - Tostino 8y ago
    Generally employer / employee relationship, the employer has vastly more bargaining power. Obviously this is no absolution, but I wouldn't say that forced arbitration is a fair practice under those circumstances is fair practice.
fallingfrog 8y ago
Give’m hell! That’s how you get things done.
danbrooks 8y ago
It's nice to see a civil protest. Both sides seemed interested in compromise and moving the company forward.
- theaustinseven 8y ago
  Really? It looks more like Riot is doing the absolute minimum to make it look like they are actually interested. They won't get rid of forced arbitration for current or past employees, and new employees only get to opt out(I wonder how many hoops they'll have to jump through for that). Current employees can't even opt out at this point.
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    They don't even get to actually opt out, just "for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims"; the qualifier "individual" is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting too.
  - danbrooks 8y ago
    My sense is that Riot executive are supportive of making a change. Legal, on the other hand, might not want to restart arbitrations and rewrite contracts.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  I don't think we've ever seen an uncivil protest in tech. It hasn't gotten bad enough to warrant it. Nothing like the literal battles of the original labor movement during the gilded age that had double digit death tolls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_United_States_labor_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...
- razakel 8y ago
  >It's nice to see a civil protest. Both sides seemed interested in compromise and moving the company forward. It's almost as if collective bargaining actually works. Why is tech one of the few sectors with no real unions?
  - setr 8y ago
    I’m struggling to think of other white collar jobs that have unionized; at least in the US. Examples?
unseenbastiat 8y ago
Let me get this straight: Potential hires were offered an employment contract with terms that included the settling certain disputes through arbitration. They accepted the offer and signed the contract. Now these people are not only are trying to nullify that clause, they’re adopting an air of moral superiority because they think that clause should never have existed. Not only does this seem unsympathetic to me, it seems impractical. Why would you go work for a company that seemingly doesn’t share your values only to later take an activist stance to try and change said company?
- Sir_Substance 8y ago
  Contracts are a negotiation. There's nothing wrong with one side or the other asking for a negotiation or renegotiation in good faith. Contracts are not immutable, they get amended all the time for all sorts of reasons. Choosing to withhold your labor until a renegotiation happens is an extreme tactic that is likely to generate bad faith from the other party long term, but it's always legal and always moral because our society considers slavery unacceptable. Contracts are an important part of working conditions, as are workers perceptions of self-worth. If your contractual working conditions are demeaning such that you're prepared to not get paid and potentially risk being terminated in order to protest the demeaning conditions, no reasonable person would attempt to force you to work. It is to the companies benefit in these cases that knowledgeable employees attempt to solve the problem rather than simply leaving. It is much cheaper to amend contracts than train new workers. This is a classic case where amending relevant contracts benefits everyone. Is that does that help you straighten this out?
  - unseenbastiat 8y ago
    Appreciate the reply, but we may be talking past each other here. Note I didn’t take the position of “you signed the contract, suck it up”. Renegotiations can and do happen. Like you point out, people could get potentially be fired for walking out. At that point, those employees have demonstrated that having this clause changed is worth potentially not having this job. If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Same things at stake, same gambit, just more direct. Furthermore, now that these employees are trying to renegotiate after having worked with such terms in place for a time, what prompted this change? Were they once accepting of such terms but changes their mind? Or did they not object when that clause was only in their own contract, but now that they see it in other peoples contracts they are inspired to make some company-wide change? The motivations are far from clear. The other part of the above comment left unaddressed is the implicit demonstration of priorities seems strange. The games industry has plenty of turnover, burnout, and rough conditions. So when some people choose to work in the games industry, presumably out of passion, their opportunity cost is substantial. Meanwhile, Riot Games has had a history of bad/abusive behavior within the company. So what kind of person does it take to go work at Riot but later decide “this is the issue where I’m taking a stand.” If they cared that much about working some place they like, and Riot already has this history, it seems strange to later be indignant about their workplace.
nwsm 8y ago
At first I thought the title meant that Riot "walked them out" ie fired them and walked them out of the building on the spot.

48 points by smacktoward 8y ago

Is there an upside of arbitration for employees? From what I read it's mostly for the benefit of the company. How is it even legal to forcefully take away the right of settling matters in court?

thwythwy 8y ago
because Scalia.
aeternus 8y ago
The upside is lower cost for both parties. Courts mostly require a lawyer to successfully navigate. The goal of civil court is to enforce contracts. If both parties agree via a contract to solve any disagreements with 3rd party arbitration, why wouldn't that be legal?
- Tostino 8y ago
  Generally employer / employee relationship, the employer has vastly more bargaining power. Obviously this is no absolution, but I wouldn't say that forced arbitration is a fair practice under those circumstances is fair practice.

fallingfrog 8y ago

Give’m hell! That’s how you get things done.

danbrooks 8y ago

It's nice to see a civil protest. Both sides seemed interested in compromise and moving the company forward.

theaustinseven 8y ago
Really? It looks more like Riot is doing the absolute minimum to make it look like they are actually interested. They won't get rid of forced arbitration for current or past employees, and new employees only get to opt out(I wonder how many hoops they'll have to jump through for that). Current employees can't even opt out at this point.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  They don't even get to actually opt out, just "for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims"; the qualifier "individual" is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting too.
- danbrooks 8y ago
  My sense is that Riot executive are supportive of making a change. Legal, on the other hand, might not want to restart arbitrations and rewrite contracts.
CydeWeys 8y ago
I don't think we've ever seen an uncivil protest in tech. It hasn't gotten bad enough to warrant it. Nothing like the literal battles of the original labor movement during the gilded age that had double digit death tolls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_United_States_labor_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...
razakel 8y ago
>It's nice to see a civil protest. Both sides seemed interested in compromise and moving the company forward. It's almost as if collective bargaining actually works. Why is tech one of the few sectors with no real unions?
- setr 8y ago
  I’m struggling to think of other white collar jobs that have unionized; at least in the US. Examples?

unseenbastiat 8y ago

Let me get this straight: Potential hires were offered an employment contract with terms that included the settling certain disputes through arbitration. They accepted the offer and signed the contract. Now these people are not only are trying to nullify that clause, they’re adopting an air of moral superiority because they think that clause should never have existed. Not only does this seem unsympathetic to me, it seems impractical. Why would you go work for a company that seemingly doesn’t share your values only to later take an activist stance to try and change said company?

Sir_Substance 8y ago
Contracts are a negotiation. There's nothing wrong with one side or the other asking for a negotiation or renegotiation in good faith. Contracts are not immutable, they get amended all the time for all sorts of reasons. Choosing to withhold your labor until a renegotiation happens is an extreme tactic that is likely to generate bad faith from the other party long term, but it's always legal and always moral because our society considers slavery unacceptable. Contracts are an important part of working conditions, as are workers perceptions of self-worth. If your contractual working conditions are demeaning such that you're prepared to not get paid and potentially risk being terminated in order to protest the demeaning conditions, no reasonable person would attempt to force you to work. It is to the companies benefit in these cases that knowledgeable employees attempt to solve the problem rather than simply leaving. It is much cheaper to amend contracts than train new workers. This is a classic case where amending relevant contracts benefits everyone. Is that does that help you straighten this out?
- unseenbastiat 8y ago
  Appreciate the reply, but we may be talking past each other here. Note I didn’t take the position of “you signed the contract, suck it up”. Renegotiations can and do happen. Like you point out, people could get potentially be fired for walking out. At that point, those employees have demonstrated that having this clause changed is worth potentially not having this job. If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Same things at stake, same gambit, just more direct. Furthermore, now that these employees are trying to renegotiate after having worked with such terms in place for a time, what prompted this change? Were they once accepting of such terms but changes their mind? Or did they not object when that clause was only in their own contract, but now that they see it in other peoples contracts they are inspired to make some company-wide change? The motivations are far from clear. The other part of the above comment left unaddressed is the implicit demonstration of priorities seems strange. The games industry has plenty of turnover, burnout, and rough conditions. So when some people choose to work in the games industry, presumably out of passion, their opportunity cost is substantial. Meanwhile, Riot Games has had a history of bad/abusive behavior within the company. So what kind of person does it take to go work at Riot but later decide “this is the issue where I’m taking a stand.” If they cared that much about working some place they like, and Riot already has this history, it seems strange to later be indignant about their workplace.

nwsm 8y ago

At first I thought the title meant that Riot "walked them out" ie fired them and walked them out of the building on the spot.