Labor & Employment Year in Review 2013: Arbitration
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As 2013 draws to a close, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what has come to pass in the in-house legal world this year, and look forward to what’s coming up in the next. When asked what they are thinking about on the occasion of the new year, labor and employment attorneys told CorpCounsel.com that there is plenty on their minds, from wage and hour cases, to an emboldened National Labor Relations Board, to the Americans with Disabilities Act. However one of the most commonly cited topics of all was arbitration agreements with class action waivers.
Patrick Shea, partner at Paul Hastings and employment chair at the firm’s New York office, told CorpCounsel.com that the rulings he has seen on class action waivers in 2013 were some of the most significant developments he has seen not only this year, but over the span of his career.
Shea said that in the employment space, the “enormous expenses” of defending a class action over issues like wage and hour claims have prompted employers to ask employees to waive their right to bring claims to court and to pursue class actions.
“What a number of employers have done over the last 20 years is that they have included mandatory arbitration language either in employee handbooks, sometimes in employee applications, sometimes in employment contracts, and the language includes a waiver of the right to file a class action grievance,” Peter Zinober, co-chair of the global labor and employment and global human capital solutions practices at Greenberg Traurig, told CorpCounsel.com
Read original articleTags: Class Action, National Labor Relations Board
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