And now for my third assessment on how Trump and his axis are attacking the working family. I've covered his
resistance to the fiduciary rule that would have prevented retirement fund managers from scamming the savings workers put aside for retirement (no one had an answer to that one) and I covered his
tax policy that WILL cut services to working families while creating a record-breaking $1 trillion deficit. This third exhibit focuses on his pressure to force arbitration.
Unlike the tax cut scam, this assault is not so much a direct attack as it is a disabling of protections. So like the fiduciary rule that is designed to protect retirement savings, the fight to allow workers the right to take their employers to court when their employers have violated state, local or even federal labor laws is being denied.
This is a somewhat complicated issue, which many people won't have the patience to understand, so instead of explaining this myself only to be told that I'm too wordy, I'm going to refer to this very well-written article that explains the recent Supreme Court decision on the matter and some background to put the decision (and my opinion) in context. If you prefer simple statements that lack detail, feel free to fast forward to my conclusion...
http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-employers-prevail-in-arbitration-case/Conclusion:
With new forced arbitration clauses becoming popular with employers, workers are being forced to give up their rights as citizens to bring grievances to court.
This effectively gives the employers the right to ignore labor laws and treat their workers any way they want. Since the court decision, penned by Gorsuch, was finalized last week, an estimated 60 million workers have lost their rights this way. This is what I call a silent attack on the working family because the crimes occur in the private sector and the refusal by Trump and the Republicans in the public sector to do anything to protect the workers from these crimes insure that the crimes themselves and any resulting arbitration will remain private business and therefore unseen by the public.
This isn't the first time Americans have been here, in 1925 The Federal Arbitration Act, backed up the employers who wanted to block their workers from the courts and force them to settle disputes directly with their employers. But nine years later it was becoming increasingly obvious that the workers have no leverage as arbitration often came down to "do you want to keep your job?" So The National Labor Relations Act was passed to allow workers to arbitrate collectively, so not the worker can answer the previous question with "do you want production to halt?" At least this way the table is even. But recently, companies have been adding clauses to their arbitration agreements that say workers cannot collectively arbitrate. This too was enforced by the court decision and now American workers can't even rally together.
There is no doubt this will cause almost every employer in the nation to include similar arbitration agreements as a means of limiting liability and this will no doubt make our labor laws moot. I can pay someone 65 cents an hour and work him for 16 hours a day and even though I'd be breaking labor laws it wouldn't matter if the worker can't even take m to court.
Make no mistake... If you are a working class American like I am (any American that needs to work for a living) Trump is NOT your friend... he is your ENEMY!