Keeping Informed on Arbitration Issues in Congress

Those who follow this blog may notice that we have taken a keen interest in the issue of employer-mandated arbitration as a condition of employment.  It is a practice that has been increasingly widespread amongst large employers in recent years, and the effect may be that employees will have a harder time vindicating their statutory rights in the court system.

Earlier this year, on April 29, 2009, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) proposed the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 (S. 931).  The key phrase in this bill that pertains to employee rights is found in section 402(a), which reads:  “Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no predispute arbitration agreement shall be valid or enforceable if it requires arbitration of an employment…dispute.”

A similar bill (H.R. 1020) was proposed on March 16, 2009, in the House of Representatives by Representative Henry Johnson (D-GA).  While the text is not precisely the same, this House bill similarly prohibits predispute arbitration agreements in the employment context, and goes even further to prohibit arbitration agreements in cases where the dispute arises from a statute intended to protect civil rights.

This legislation is an important step in the right direction in protecting employees’ right to bring their grievances before a judge or jury in a court of law.  Senator Feingold, Representative Johnson, and the bills’ co-sponsors recognize that arbitration agreements were always intended to be a bargain between two parties with equal bargaining power, rather than a unilateral imposition on an employee who has no choice in the matter but to accept or quit her job.  Senator Feingold’s statements on the floor of the Senate at the bill’s introduction can be found here.

For those who are interested in informing themselves about the issues involved and the arguments to be made on this legislation, Cornell University ILR School hosted a web seminar on November 5, 2009, that is available to any who wish to watch.  The registration page for this seminar can be found here.

Home Depot Assistant Managers Fight for Overtime

On November 9th, Kyle Diamond and Areceli Mendoza, two former Home Depot Assistant Store Managers, filed for class certification in a suit against their former employer, Home Depot.  The plaintiffs claim that Home Depot purposely misclassified them as salaried employees, which denied them access to traditional overtime benefits that hourly wage earners typically receive.  Diamond and Mendoza have hired Squitieri & Fearon LLP to represent them in the action.  We have posted about employers attempting to dodge their responsibilities to their employees with respect to overtime benefits in the past (see our posts on CVS, GameStop and Staples).

We post this in order to alert Connecticut Home Depot employees that were classified as assistant managers of the existence of this class action suit, and to inform them that they may have a similar claim against the company.

This is not the first time that Home Depot has been sued for misclassifying employees as assistant managers, people who were given the extra responsibilities of management without being given most of the privileges of a managerial position.  In July, former assistant managers working for Home Depot filed suit for the same reasons.  The exploitation of workers by companies who wish to deny them the benefits of management, while denying the benefits of overtime, needs to stop.

For information regarding overtime exemptions, visit the Connecticut Department of Labor web site.

“Fired!” Places Unemployment in a New Perspective

Annabelle Gurwitch had a great job working on a musical with Woody Allen.  That is, until Woody fired her.  After spending a great deal of time commiserating with her friends and colleagues on the experience, Annabelle realized that what she found intriguing about her situation was not that she had been fired, but the stories that so many people had to tell of the experience.

Enter “Fired!,” Gurwitch’s 2007 documentary that puts a slight comedic twist on the experience of being “canned,” “let go,” “sacked,” “getting the axe,” or any of the other words and phrases everyone out there uses to describe the ordeal of losing a job.  Make no mistake though; this documentary is not all about laughs.  Aside from the array of comedians that tell their (often amusing) stories of being let go (including Tim Allen, Bruce Cameron, David Cross, and Andy Dick), Gurwitch hits the streets and the job fairs to hear stories from everyday people as well.  Above all, the film attempts to place unemployment in perspective and let the viewer know that as personal and insulting being fired can be, it isn’t the end of the world.

In the end, “Fired!” is a film that lets the viewer know that sometimes being fired is life’s way of telling us that it is time to move on to the next chapter of our lives and make something happen.  Being fired is one of life’s most difficult experiences, but this film is worth a viewing because it places the problem in perspective, while also giving us something to smile about.  While it is not a perfect film, it contains a lot of insight into just why we feel the way we do when we get the dreaded news and hopefully how we can cope with the pain and move on with our lives in a constructive way.

Click here to view the movie trailer.