Congress Pushes for Employee Rights in Harassment, Discrimination, and Whistleblower Cases

A bill pending in Congress called the Arbitration Fairness Act seeks to end forced arbitration of harassment, discrimination, whistleblower and other employment lawsuits.  Arbitration is viewed by many lawyers as a forum that favors big business.  Arbitration is a process where employees and consumers give up their right to a trial before a judge and jury in favor of a hearing before a privately-hired lawyer.  An arbitrator is not required to give any reasons for his decision and rights of appeal are extremely limited.  Unfortunately, employers increasingly require employees to submit to arbitration as a condition of getting a job -- usually by having the employee sign an arbitration contract on the first day on the job.  The bill has 108 co-sponsors in the House but only 11 in the Senate.

Please contact Castronovo & McKinney if you have any questions regarding your severance agreement and visit our blog for additional information.