Companies are quietly eliminating a long-held employee privilege: the right to band together to take the boss to court, the Wall Street Journal reported today. As employers try to stem the costs of lawsuits, more companies are requiring workers to bring serious complaints to arbitration and forbidding employees from participating in class actions. The percentage of companies using arbitration clauses to preclude class-action claims soared to 43 percent last year from 16 percent in 2012, according to a survey of nearly 350 companies conducted by management-side law firm Carlton Fields Jorden Burt LLP. Fueling the trend is a 2011 Supreme Court ruling in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that upheld such agreements. The result, say lawyers on both sides of the issue, has been a notable decline in actions that accuse corporations of wage theft, discrimination, and other systemic violations of labor laws.
