SCOTUS Sends Middle Finger to Workers, Gives Corporations A Win

This week, the US Supreme Court ruled that workers CANNOT file lawsuits against employers for stealing their wages, and instead, they have to go in front of a panel of corporate-friendly arbitrators. Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discusses this.

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This week the US Supreme Court ruled that workers cannot filed lawsuits against employers for stealing their wages and instead they have to go in front of a panel of corporate friendly arbitrators that are always hand picked by the corporation. This story's been kicking out there for a long time, I mean you've got a labor policy that makes it virtually impossible for individuals to sue their employers, in other words an employer literally steals money from them. They do it all kinds of ways.

They make them work during break times. They don't pay them for overtime. They've got all kinds of scams. We've seen very iteration you could imagine from this. So no question that the Supreme Court knows that goes on, because they've seen these cases. They've seen the facts straight up. They know the facts of Mcdonalds, they know the facts of ... I mean I could go on forever, these industries that ... Walmart, all of the companies that have these scams where they virtually steal money from employees.

No difference than going into their locker and taking money right out of their locker. But we have a Supreme Court that says, "well gee wiz, we should be able to allow them to go in force in a class action mode and say you've stolen from us. We want our money back." What is your take on this case?

What's interesting about this case is that it really does bring to light two important issues that people often gloss over. One is the wage theft issue, and the other is the forced arbitration, both of which are huge problems for consumers that honestly until the Supreme Court case came out, I don't think I've heard anybody in the corporate media ever talk about this. We have talked about wage theft, you and I for years now, and we know how it works as you've said.

They don't pay them overtime, they make them work off the clock. They reclassify them is one of the big things they do. They'll say, "Well you're actually, even though you work and you do the same job as somebody else, you're a manager, even though you have no authority, so therefor you are not entitled to any overtime pay whatsoever." Just weird little tricks like that.

Well let's talk about why the corporate networks, MSNBC for example, they got caught. I mean they got caught. They had people working for nothing. "Oh come work with Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough and we're not gonna pay you, which really not gonna benefit your career, but come work with us." And they had these kids working crazy hours for nothing, and so that would be an issue that they certainly wouldn't do a story on it, and they certainly did no stories on that type of thing.

So there's that part of it, and as you point out, this arbitration black hole that's developing across the board. First of all, explain arbitration a little bit. I know you've written a couple stories on it. It is just nothing but a black hole for consumers.

Right. What it means is you know whether it's with an employment contract or a cell phone or credit card, home loan, you agree to go instead of being able to sue, you're giving away your constitutional rights, you have to go in front of this arbitrator who is the sole decider of this case. Whatever that person says, and this arbitrator in almost every instance when you sign the clause is picked by the company.

Yeah, statistically, more than 70% of the time, the consumer's gonna lose.

Well 90% now, the latest numbers are out and it's 90.

Yeah well when you just looked at across the board, consumer issues, it was 70%, now it's moved to 90%. It's gonna get worse. But what needs up happening is they find these trolls. They find these characters that come out of industry that maybe worked for them in the past or they go to universities and they get these professors that are making a $150,000 a year and they want to make $400,000 a year so they get on the arbitration train.