The Widespread Use of Workplace Arbitration Among America's Top 100 Companies (The Employee Rights Advocacy Institute for Law & Policy 2017)

Abstract

The ability to access courts is disappearing for workers in America because arbitration clauses have permeated the majority of the leading companies in America. Personal injury claims, wage claims, civil rights claims, sexual assault claims, and other claims involving the workplace and vulnerable workers may never be heard in a public court, with broad procedural protections for employees, because of the use of arbitration clauses. Further, through the use of class waivers, it is impossible for employees to join together in a class or collective action against their more powerful and far better-resourced employers. Access to courts has become increasingly more difficult for workers, and the vast majority of America’s top companies have tried to block workers from entering the courthouse door. This report examines the use of arbitration agreements by the largest domestic U.S. companies. The research in this report was undertaken to identify: 1) How many of these companies have utilized arbitration to resolve workplace disputes since 2010; and 2) Of those companies, how many use arbitration clauses that require workers also to waive their right to proceed collectively or as part of a class (a “class waiver”). This report does not address labor arbitration or unionized employees who are bound to arbitrate under a collective bargaining agreement; instead, this report focuses on individual arbitration agreements for workplace disputes. The key findings from the research done for this report are that eighty percent of top companies have used arbitration agreements since 2010, and of those, almost forty percent have used arbitration clauses that contain class waivers.