U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is currently considering the intersection of two federal statutes governing workplace disputes. The first, the Federal Arbitration Act, dictates that arbitration agreements “shall be valid, irrevocable and enforceable.” The second, the National Labor Relations Act, grants workers the right to engage in “concerted activities” for “mutual aid or protection,” and makes it an unfair labor practice for employers to “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees” in the exercise of this right. These two statutory directives have come into conflict through employers’ increasingly-common practice of requiring workers to agree to individual arbitration of all work-related claims—barring them from pursuing class or collective action. The court is tasked with reconciling the statutes in three consolidated cases: Epic System v. Lewis, Ernst & Young v. Morris, and National Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA.
In each of the three cases, employees were required to enter into an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment. The arbitration agreements broadly required that any disputes be resolved through binding individual arbitration, rather than in court. The arbitration agreements also waived the employees’ right to participate in any class, collective, or representative proceeding.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
