Companies like Halliburton/KBR force their employees to give up their constitutional right to access the courts. So if a Halliburton employee has a claim against the company, he or she can’t file a lawsuit. Employees are instead forced to fight it out in arbitration, a private process where there are no juries, no appeals, and Halliburton repeatedly pays the lawyer who decides who wins the dispute.
Halliburton and others choose arbitration not because, as they dishonestly claim, it’s more fair or less expensive. They choose it because it’s less fair and more expensive. It’s less fair to consumers and employees and more expensive for ordinary citizens who can’t afford to spend what corporations can in long, drawn out arbitrations.
The whole exercise is an inherently corrupt practice enthusiastically embraced by Texas’ extremist conservative courts and our radical-right senator, John Cornyn.
This year, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) proposed and the Senate passed legislation which prohibits companies like Halliburton from forcing rape victims into arbitration. Now that legislation appears to be on track to becoming law:
Inspired by the alleged rape of former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones, Congress is poised to pass a measure banning federal defense contractors from forcing employees to use arbitration to resolve claims of discrimination and sexual assault.House and Senate negotiators agreed late Tuesday to include the arbitration provision in a defense spending bill that is expected to pass the House later today. The measure was not in a House-passed defense spending bill, but was adopted by the Senate in October. The Senate’s 68-30 vote divided Texas’ two Republican senators, with John Cornyn opposing the arbitration proposal and Kay Bailey Hutchison supporting it.
The provision bars the government from spending federal dollars on defense contracts of more than $1 million with companies that seek to enforce binding arbitration requirements in employee contracts that force the workers to use arbitration — instead of the court system — to resolve claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and negligent hiring.
John Cornyn got all twisted up after voting against this measure because his vote made him look like he was pro-rape:
Franken’s amendment has caused angst for Republicans, some of whom complained it unfairly targeted Halliburton, and others chafing at criticism from liberal commentators and blogs that portrayed them as “defending” rapists
Earlier this month, Cornyn told Politico that Franken’s “trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues” is not “a very constructive thing.”
Some Democrats set up a website dedicated to the thirty conservatives who voted against Franken’s amendment. It’s called Republicans for Rape. Heh.
The thing is, the Republicans who opposed Franken’s amendment aren’t pro-rape exactly. They’re just anti-rape victim and pro- whatever giant corporation tried to cover it up.
Proponents of arbitration say that it is
encouraged over traditional court litigation because arbitration is generally less expensive than litigation and provides for faster resolution through flexible scheduling and simpler rules. In addition, arbitration results are only made public with the consent of the parties involved in the dispute. This differs from traditional court litigation in that courts are public forums and information about business and personal affairs may become public knowledge. Arbitration helps to protect privacy and increases the chance of reaching an agreement that will satisfy all of the parties to the dispute.
In fact, just initiating an arbitration can cost thousands of dollars. Filing a lawsuit costs about $200.
But filing fees are only the beginning. In addition to paying their own lawyers, parties to an arbitration must also pay the hourly fees of the arbitrator. An arbitrator is just a lawyer who acts as judge and jury. Actual judges are paid by the state or county.
So in a very real way, a company like Halliburton, which participates in a large number of arbitrations each year, repeatedly pays the same arbitrators large sums of money. If those arbitrators don’t consistently rule in Halliburton’s favor, what are the odds that Halliburton will allow them to sit in judgment on it again?
Corporate defendants almost always win in arbitration. and consumers and employees almost always lose. That’s not a consumer-rights position — when they talk to each other, corporate lawyers admit it too.
And of course, that’s why corporations like arbitration so much. The deck is stacked in their favor.
So you see, John Cornyn and the 29 other Republican Senators who voted against Franken’s amendment aren’t really pro-rape. They’re just slavishly anti-employee and anti-consumer. Why? Because big businesses have given millions of dollars to Cornyn. Have you? No? Well, you get what you pay for.
Partisan Gridlock with Geoff Berg airs every Friday from 3:00 – 4:00 pm on KPFT, 90.1 FM in Houston, 89.5 FM in Galveston, and everywhere else on Facebook or at www.kpft.org.
