Melissa Greenberg is a student at Harvard Law School.
This post is part of OnLabor’s continuing analysis of National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA.
In the lead up to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on October 2, 2017 in the consolidated cases of Murphy Oil USA, Epic Systems, and Ernst and Young, the Economic Policy Institute published a paper examining the prevalence of arbitration agreements among America’s workers. The report is available in full here. The report examines the rise of these agreements following the Supreme Court’s 1991 decision in Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., which held that the Federal Arbitration Act applied to employment agreements. The report calculates that more than 60 million workers in nonunion workplaces have mandatory arbitration agreements. Approximately 30 percent of employers with these types of agreements also have class action waiver provisions. These statistics highlight the high stakes for workers in the outcome of these cases before the Court.
Scotusblog reports that Paul Clement, who is currently at Kirkland Ellis and previously served as solicitor general, will argue the case for the employers in the consolidated cases. He will split his time with the Solicitor General’s office. Counsel for the parties representing the employees will split their argument time with the National Labor Relations Board.
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September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.
September 8
DC Circuit to rule on deference to NLRB, more vaccine exemption cases, Senate considers ban on forced arbitration for age discrimination claims.
September 7
Another weak jobs report, the Trump Administration's refusal to arbitrate with federal workers, and a district court judge's order on the constitutionality of the Laken-Riley Act.