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Rick Claypool

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More than 125,500 tell Chamber of Commerce: Stop protecting rapists!

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That’s right, more than 125,500 signed our petition to demand an end to the US Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying against Senator Franken’s (D-Minn) amendment to bar defense contractors like Halliburton/KBR from forcing employees with sexual assault and discrimination claims into arbitration.

Public Citizen, along with MoveOn.org, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Consumer Action, Workplace Fairness, National Association of Consumer Advocates, Take Back Your Rights PAC, Alliance for Justice and the Jamie Leigh Foundation, sent the following petition to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue:

Defense contractors routinely force their employees to give up their legal rights to press charges if they are sexually assaulted on the job. I urge the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop lobbying in favor of this terrible practice and to stop protecting rapists.

It’s a horrifying story that began with Jamie Leigh Jones’ rape and subsequent denial of justice. Sen. Franken championed the amendment on behalf of Jones and others like her, and the grassroots support from Public Citizen and others was impossible to ignore.

Now the amendment is on its way to restoring victims’ rights against and defense contractors’ shadowy attempts to conceal these injustices.

If the Franken amendment passes in the defense funding bill, it means that U.S. contractors must allow victims of sexual assault and discrimination to take their claims to court – a right that has been systematically denied to them through a forced arbitration clause slipped into their employment contracts (along with workers in numerous other sectors ).

Finally, workers who are victims of these injustices will be able hold the defense contractors who employ them accountable.

Nevertheless, the fight is far from over for the millions of other workers, consumers, home owners, patients and others who are e stripped of their right to go to court just by using a product or service, or taking a job.

Nobody should have to give up their right to go to court if harmed by a company as a condition for a contract. Congress now needs to pass the Arbitration Fairness Act (H.R. 1020 / S. 931) and end forced arbitration once and for all.

Fighting bad deals in the fine print

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Cross-posted from Citizen Vox

Like many folks, I often feel a twinge of guilt for not reading all the fine print when signing contracts for credit cards and other services. I feel like there’s something there I should know (and worry) about, and if I could figure out exactly what it is, then I might be able to fight back if it turned out I signed a bad deal. But, of course, I start to read, my eyes glaze over, and … well, I never figure out what that worrisome item is.

Today, we need Congress to overturn one of the most unfair items in contracts like these: binding arbitration agreements. Sign one, and you sign away your right to take the company to court. They’re tucked into many contracts for numerous services and employment, and there’s little a consumer can do to combat them directly.

Sound too boring to bother with? Ask Debbie Dantz, a former Applebee’s employee. Ian Millhiser writes of her plight in the Huffington Post. Dantz endured appallingly cruel sexual harrassment at work. Her complaints to management were ignored, and she eventually was presented with a binding arbitration agreement to sign. She knew that if she signed, she would no longer have the right to take Applebee’s to court if they broke the law, so she refused. She was told that if she didn’t sign, she would be paid nothing but tips (a violation of federal minimum wage laws). But she needed the job so much, she didn’t quit.

Good thing she held on to her right to go to court, right? Millhiser writes:

After nearly three years of harassment, abuse and long hours for little or no pay, Dantz finally decided that she’d had enough. She filed suit against her employer–and the court kicked her to the curb. Even though Dantz refused to sign the binding arbitration agreement, the court said that merely by continuing to work for Applebees, she was bound by its terms. Debbie Dantz’ employer illegally abused her for almost three years, and Dantz was powerless to hold it accountable.

She refused to sign the agreement, but her right to go to court was still taken away. The corporate bias to this law is unbelievable.

This week, the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 was introduced to Congress. By passing it, Congress could stop companies from blocking people like Dantz’s access to their right to a day in court.

Read Public Citizen’s David Arkush’s statement on the Arbitration Fairness Act, and please encourage your Congress members to support this legislation.
Want to learn more? Click here to read Public Citizen’s full report on binding arbitration.

Flickr photo by mindgutter