Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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Employment arbitration has come under sustained attack in some quarters of the popular media. Contending that “corporations effectively control the arbitration process,” the New York Times editorial board in November 2015 declared arbitration to be “a stacked deck if ever there was one.”  Editorial, “Arbitrating Disputes, Denying Justice,” N.Y. Times (Nov. 7, 2015)(available at https://nyti.ms/2v0oa6q). 

The board lamented, however, that reversing what it saw as “the broader trend of forced arbitration” would “require public outcry loud and long enough to stir the White House and Congress to action.”

Now two-and-a-half years later, we may be in the midst of just such an outcry. 

It seems to have begun last fall when the Times published an op-ed by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, “How to Encourage More Women to Report Sexual Harassment” ((Oct. 10, 2017)(available at https://nyti.ms/2xv5MDi)), in the wake of public allegations about the conduct of movie producer Harvey Weinstein