Companies are quietly eliminating a long-held employee privilege: the right to band together to take the boss to court.
As employers try to stem the costs of lawsuits, more companies are requiring workers to bring serious complaints to arbitration and forbidding employees from participating in class actions.
The percentage of companies using arbitration clauses to preclude class-action claims soared to 43% last year from 16% in 2012, according to a survey of nearly 350 companies conducted by management-side law firm Carlton Fields Jorden Burt LLP.
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The Carlton Fields survey found that the percentage of class-action lawsuits that address employment issues slipped to 23% in 2014 from 28% in 2011. Class-action suits from workers cost employers $462.8 million in 2014, down from $598.9 million in 2011, according to the survey.
