Why arbitration clauses need to go.

This is a federal courthouse. Nice, huh? But even though your tax dollars paid for it, you can't go here.

Our tax dollars pay for federal courthouses. Judges and bailiffs and law clerks and court reporters all work here. Our tax dollars pay them as well.

For centuries, Americans could go to one if their rights were violated and get an impartial hearing from a judge that the President and U.S. Senate thought was qualified for the job.  If your boss violated federal law by forcing you to work overtime without pay this is the kind of place you used to be able to go to for help.

In fact, you have a Constitutional right to do so under the Seventh Amendment. 

But (sensibly) if neither party wants a jury trial, the federal government isn’t going to force one on you.  And, without knowing it, you have probably already “agreed” to waive your Constitutional rights dozens of times. 

Hidden in just about every boilerplate contract or employment agreement you click “I Agree” to or sign is a mandatory arbitration clause.  You just gave up a Constitutional right without knowing it.  But the company you’re dealing with knows exactly what you did.  They wrote the contract, after all. 

Now, you have to go to arbitration.  Instead of a judge appointed for life and paid with tax dollars, you get arbitrators who are paid for by big companies.  

So instead of a Constitutionally-mandated public process overseen by judges with lifetime appointments paid for by the government, you get a secret process that you didn’t agree to overseen by arbitrators paid for by big companies.  

Does it matter?  Since the results of arbitrations are not made public like court cases are, it can be tough to tell.  But an investigation by Public Citizen found that 94% of credit card arbitrations by the leading arbitration company at the time favored the companies.  The Economic Policy Institute put the number at 93%.

 That’s why they have to go.

First Reason.

You give up your constitutional rights without knowing it.

Second Reason.

Legal process becomes secretive.

Third Reason.

94% of credit card arbitrations by the leading arbitration company at the time favored the companies.