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Riot Games workers walk out to protest forced arbitration
- joshuaheard 7y agoIt's not "forced arbitration", it's "contractual arbitration" which means both sides agree to it. Employment contracts are freely negotiable, including a contractual arbitration clause.
- solatic 7y agoCompanies larger than a certain size should be required to use a standard template for employment contracts. It is acceptable and normal to negotiate over compensation, including salary, bonus rates/amounts, vacation days, etc., subject to legal minimums. It should not be acceptable to negotiate over terms like contractual arbitration, non-competition/non-solicitation, etc. - there should be a regulatory standard for every employment contract.
- briffle 7y agoThat may be true for the executive team, and a 'rockstar' developer or two, But I'm finding it hard to believe that a QA person, or mid-level project manager, or the receptionist has any ability to negotiate their employment contract. Especially when rent is due at the end of the month, and little Bobby needs new shoes. I think its similar to the arguments saying forced arbitration is fine for cell phone contracts, because you can choose to not do business with that company, when EVERY cell phone provider now has them...
- aquova 7y agoI find that argument to be fairly naive. In theory there are lots of things that can be negotiated but are rarely done so, especially in an industry with a high abundance of eager workers. Having a small clause in their contract that voids their ability to take legal action against the company is something that I find to be worth protesting against.
- joshuaheard 7y agoIt's what the law presumes. There is such a thing as an "adhesion" contract, where a power disparity can lead to the voiding of contractual clauses, for instance, the super fine print in a cell phone contract. But, I don't think an employment contract would fall into that category.
- andylei 7y agoand this walkout is an example of that free negotiation
- sovnade 7y ago"It says right here in the contract that I can sexually harass you and suffer essentially no consequences. You signed it."
- AnaniasAnanas 7y agoWell, shouldn't have signed it.
- make3 7y agoa walkout is a legit negotiation strategy
- AnaniasAnanas 7y agoI don't disagree.
- lixtra 7y agoSuch a clause would be nil in most jurisdictions. EDIT: to be more specific: if you get raped at work, the criminal part against the rapist goes to court as usual. The case against the company because of establishing a rape culture and you seeking compensation goes to arbitration.
- dd36 7y agoSo it would be nil only if criminal charges could be brought.
- bdowling 7y agoThat contract would probably be unenforceable due to being against public policy.
- fnrslvr 7y agoAre you familiar with the story? The COO of Riot has been accused of ball-tapping and humping employees. I don't know about you, but if someone "ball-tapped" me in a workplace, I'd be reporting the incident to HR as sexual harassment.
- stephenr 7y agoI spent a week or so on site as a contractor (well technically a contractor for a company with a contract).. I certainly didn't leave thinking "hey these guys have it great". I still keep thinking about their company policy: employees were expected to play their game every day. Can you imagine if McDonalds said they expected staff to eat at least one meal every day in-store?
- legohead 7y agoReminds me of when I worked at a smaller telecom company who had a crazy VP. He would approach random employees, ask them who their long distance carrier was, and if it wasn't the company, he'd fire them on the spot. "Why are you working for us if you don't believe in us?"
- novia 7y agoI was in a Wendy's recently and saw a "now hiring" sign. One of the selling points was "free meals" so...
- stephenr 7y agoI didn't say "they are told they can play the game for free", and Wendys isn't saying "You will eat at least one meal a day from Wendys"
- onetimemanytime 7y agoImagine the alternative...Wendy's employees having lunch at McD's, in Wendy's uniform during their lunch break. (leaving aside the logistics of having your emps take an 1 hour break for lunch during the busiest period.)
- jayd16 7y agoThere's a lot wrong with Riot but dog fooding the game never struck me as that odd. If you work on gmail you should probably use gmail often. If you work on an iOS you should probably spend time using an iPhone.
- 7y ago
- bayareanative 7y agoGood for them. Respect. In general, tech needs to move to more co-op, employee-&customer-owned, organized labor shops with labor on the board of directors. Mandatory arbitration for any area is BS because for-profit arbitrators are paid to be pseudo-"unbiased" while most often ruling in favor of who pays the bills.
- Cmon2019 7y agoIn that case it would be good if "labor" had some skin in the game. Company goes bust - loose a portion of savings/house.
- brighter2morrow 7y agoIf the company goes bust then the workers still lose their jobs, so they do have incentives to be restrained.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tyrust 7y agoLabor does have skin in the game by investing their working time in the company. Also, particularly in tech, stock grants would be lost in such an event.
- offshore1243 7y agoEntrepreneurs who typically end up with the most shares and control over a company have more skin in the game. They usually work for nothing from the outset with no guaranteed compensation.
- mathieuh 7y agoAs an employee I go to work to sell my labour. I am incentivised to get the best deal possible for my labour. I am not there to worry about big picture things, that’s what someone else is selling their labour for. Anything that rational people can do to improve the price they get for their labour, they will. Unless you own some capital in the company, why would you care overly about the success of the company? It seems like you feel that everyone involved in a company should be equally bought into whatever “vision” they have, whereas in my case at least I simply don’t care.
- tortarga 7y agoBeing in the US, which from an outsiders perspective appears to have little in the way of employee rights, what risk do these workers face of simply being fired and replaced by the company?
- brighter2morrow 7y agoThat would be illegal. US workers have right to discuss workplace conditions and can't be fired for trying to start a union. Also this is in California which has further worker protrections on top of that.
- Haga 7y agoLet me guess, the sexual harassment was beeing forced to model and animate scantily clad gaming figures?