Supreme Court Returns With New Faces, Same Contempt For Working People

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Supreme Court Returns With New Faces, Same Contempt For Working People

Legal geeks like to talk about a "new year and a new Court," but they're kidding themselves.

By JOE PATRICE
at 12:12 PM

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So we begin another October Term of the United States Supreme Court and fittingly the song remains the same.

This morning, the Court announced that it would take Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a mouthful of a caption that could just as easily be titled Friedrichs II: The Empire Strikes Back. Once again, the Court will opine on junking almost 100 years of labor law to kneecap unions. As Chekhov said, “one must never place a 4-4 opinion on the stage if it isn’t going to become a symbol of America’s sad return to the Lochner era in the second act!” Or something like that.

In some ways, anti-labor forces got their best case scenario. Despite a decades long concerted effort to vilify teachers’ unions, there’s always a slim nut of Americans who still root for their kid’s teacher. But the bureaucrat who makes them wait on an unnecessary line at the county courthouse? Few tears will be shed for the litigants on this one, even though the effect, in the end, is the exact same.

And the hits just keep on coming! The Court’s opening up with three cases all brought to rob workers of long-held rights against employer abuse. The cases, National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, and Epic Systems v. Lewis are all about the one thing this Court enjoys more than simply picking on labor, cutting off access to the court system through forced arbitration. As Ian Millhiser explains:

In at least one case, employees were required to sign the contract as a condition of beginning work. In another, employees were forced to give up their rights as a condition of keeping their job. These contracts contained two restrictions on the employees: 1) a “forced arbitration” provision, which requires any legal disputes between the employer and the employee to be resolved in a privatized arbitration system; and 2) a provision prohibiting employees from bringing class actions or other collective suits against their employers.

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Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

https://twitter.com/josephpatrice

[bettyellen]

1. False equivalence- it's a worse court for the citizens. Shitty headline.