Forced Arbitration

Americans have a constitutional right to a jury trial. AAJ released a new report, Forced Arbitration During a Pandemic: Corporations Double Down. The data shows consumer and employment forced arbitrations increased dramatically during the pandemic. Of course, consumer and employee win rates decreased.

Despite roughly 60 million workers being subject to forced arbitration provisions at their place of employment, just 82 employees won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020 at AAA and JAMS, the two largest consumer and employment arbitration providers in the country.

This new analysis confirms the need for Congress to immediately pass the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act (H.R.963/S.505) and restore Americans’ fundamental rights to access justice when they’ve been harmed. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is marking up the FAIR Act.

The Washington Post published an article on the report. Please like and share the paper on Facebook and retweet on Twitter. Please encourage your members of Congress to pass this important legislation using this action item.

In other legislative news, Biden’s Build Back Better bill would sharply cut child poverty; reduce child-care and health care expenses by thousands of dollars a year for many families; enroll more children in pre-K; provide more people with health insurance; finance the building of one million affordable housing units; and slow climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.