Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers' Rights

[elmac]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by muriel_volestrangler (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: NPR

In a case involving the rights of tens of millions of private-sector employees, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote margin, delivered a major blow to workers, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/605012795/supreme-court-decision-delivers-blow-to-workers-rights

[Ligyron]

1. Every day brings more successful RW corporate attacks on our citizenry.

And the morons voted for it.

I wonder if we'll ever undo the damage they are causing. Certainly not in my lifetime.

[madaboutharry]

2. Elections have consequences.

[ck4829]

3. Especially sham elections

[madaboutharry]

7. Yep.

Neil Gorsuch sits in a stolen seat.

[bronxiteforever]

13. [phone]

[Plucketeer]

33. He needs his vacuuous head

jammed into a toilet seat. Water-seated!

[TimeSnowDemos]

4. Another reason

I'd probably never choose to move back to the US. Workers are second class citizens in America.

[elmac]

6. If I could

I would move as far away as possible. Things are going to get much, much worse.

[TimeSnowDemos]

8. Agreed

My wife and I say to each other how lucky we are on a near daily basis.

[Pepsidog]

28. Me too. Never thought I would be ashamed to live in America.

[mikeysnot]

34. Bush did it for me...

trump and his ilk just slammed the door shut.

My friends work for WHO in Switzerland, need to send them my resume and brush up on my German.

I'm not giving up, this shit can be undone by legislation but we need to control all three houses.

[justhanginon]

5. I guess the five corporate slugs voted much like they always do.

Like so many of our protections as common citizens, the corporate flunkeys appointed by conservative administrations could care less about rights and more about the dismantling what few protections we as regular citizens still have. Corporate rule on steroids.
At some point we should consider renaming the "Supreme Court" to better describe their value to society as a whole.

[aggiesal]

11. Corporate court? n/t

[Alethia Merritt]

9. Elections have consequences!

Slick, corrupt, and evil politicians will use your own prejudices against you and make you feel like you accomplished something special. Easy to keep fooling fools.

[aggiesal]

10. Stop signing arbitration agreements ...

It strips our rights to fight anything in the courts.

[turbinetree]

14. This court has legalized blackmail, you can not get a job without signing it, this legalized form

of discrimination is a further ally of this John Roberts racist jerk and the other four jerks sitting on this bench.....................they don't care, and people need to get out and vote................they are making this country into a third rate state, and have been doing it since 1970, and really putting the screws on the workers since the 1980's ..........................


The courts are determining your wage, health care, bargaining rights, clean food water, air and status in this country.................it's a simple fact of economics.......................and the national news media is normalizing this jerk being on the bench...................he is making rulings that are in my opinion illegal......................

[mikeysnot]

35. I had to sign one to buy a friggin car.

I told them they will be in a world of hurt if it comes to that.

[turbinetree]

12. This fucking asshole needs to be IMPEACHED...................he was put on the bench

in VIOLATION of the CONSTITUTION..........................end of story, this normalization is just fucked up, and not once in the NPR piece say anything like you know what this asshole really should not be on this bench, and this ruling by this asshole is really fucking illegal ......................nope




FUCK YOU John Roberts.......................your a complete fucking asshole..................you said in your hearing that you would abide by precedents.......................fucking LIAR, why don't you and your cronies just name it Corporations are US Courts


I bet your five right wing assholes are chopping at the bit for Janus

https://www.afscme.org/now/janus-for-leaders

[Plucketeer]

37. And there's really only ONE person

who regularly speaks publicly against all these destructive moves. ONLY ONE! FOR WHICH they're labeled as a Grandstander.

[Ohiogal]

15. That seat should belong to Merrick Garland!

[Calista241]

16. Merrick Garland, while certainly better than Neil Gorsuch

is definitely not a Ruth Bader Ginsburg clone. There is no guarantee he wouldn't have been on the side of the 5-4 majority in this case.

[elmac]

19. and the supreme court gave us citizens united

which gave us the fascists, which keeps the court fascist, a very troubling cycle. Democrats can never compromise with these monsters because it always goes bad for us.

[dajoki]

17. This is absolutely sickening n/t

[mountain grammy]

18. "Egregiously wrong"

What RBG said in her dissent.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenters, called the majority opinion "egregiously wrong." She said the 1925 arbitration law came well before federal labor laws and should not cover these arm-twisted, "take-it-or-leave it" provisions that employers are now insisting on.

The inevitable result, she warned, is that there will be huge underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of workers.

"[T]he edict that employees with wage and hours claims may seek relief only one-by-one does not come from Congress," Ginsburg writes. "It is the result of take-it-or-leave-it labor contracts harking back to the type called 'yellow dog,' and of the readiness of this Court to enforce those unbargained-for agreements. The FAA demands no such suppression of the right of workers to take concerted action for their 'mutual aid or protection.'"

She urged Congress to correct the court's elevation of the arbitration act over workers' rights.

[leftynyc]

20. Gee - I wonder

if all the morons who said Hillary was just as bad still think that considering who wrote this decision. May every single one of those morons suffer for the rest of their miserable lives.

[DFW]

30. I remember saying it--it's the Supreme Court, stupid.

All the people who dissed Hillary after the convention, for whatever reason, and didn't vote for her--I wish the direst consequences of their vote to be visited upon them. Lost rights, lost health coverage, lost jobs and lost government interest in their situation. The misery they have perpetrated on the rest of the country is and will be incalculable.

[mikeysnot]

36. stop listening or reading russians bots...

[benld74]

21. This is so effin wrong it hurts to read

[riversedge]

22. If we had a Congress concerned with workers, they would legislate a law in their favor but we

only have a corporate loving congress now. #FlipitBLUE is a must to survive in NOV>

[dlk]

23. We are More of a Corporate Autocracy Than a Democracy

Corporations rule!

[Maxheader]

24. Neil Gorsuchs'

tongue must be all shiny from lickin shoes..What did you get for
deserting amercun workers neil? harvard for all your kids?

"[T]he edict that employees with wage and hours claims may seek relief only one-by-one does not come from Congress," Ginsburg writes. "It is the result of take-it-or-leave-it labor contracts harking back to the type called 'yellow dog,' and of the readiness of this Court to enforce those unbargained-for agreements. The FAA demands no such suppression of the right of workers to take concerted action for their 'mutual aid or protection.'"

She urged Congress to correct the court's elevation of the arbitration act over workers' rights.

[Calista241]

25. My problem with this case is that the majority opinion sounds plausible.

They challenged that the National Labor Relations Act (written in 1935) doesn’t address arbitration.

And the Federal Arbitration Act (written in 1925) explicitly does address it.

The argument was over which Act is relevant, and the Supreme Court is doing what it’s supposed to do by determining which laws apply.

The majority basically said that they disagree with the law, but that the judiciary cannot overrule the will of the legislature.

[The Mouth]

31. My take, too

Massive respect to RBG, but it seems the ruling was pretty much a narrow thing about which law said or covered what.

[SummerSnow]

26. WTF???

[Me.]

27. 1925 Law? Seriously?

[CrispyQ]

29. McConnell recently bragged that he's making "generational changes" to the judiciary.

[WhiteTara]

32. They dug deep for that one. I note that it's before

the Great Depression.

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. Locking - duplicate thread

of https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142063740 . Please continue discussion there. Thanks.