— Arbitration Agreements Category Archives — Dallas Employment Lawyer Blog Published by Dallas, Texas Employment Lawyers

Tech Layoffs and Your Rights

November 17, 2022 | Linh Nguyen

Linh Nguyen Dallas Trial Attorney

If you have been on Twitter lately, you have likely borne witness to the numerous accounts of laid off former Twitter employees flooding the site. In the tumultuous days and weeks following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, thousands of employees were laid off to offset the billionaire’s over-priced acquisition of the site. And if that wasn’t enough drama, numerous fired employees were then asked to return to their jobs as the site struggled to handle the massive reduction in its workforce.

Twitter’s internal struggles are playing out in real-time on its very own platform, but it isn’t the only tech company to face large and even historic numbers of layoffs as of late. Meta and Facebook have cut over 10,000 employees each from its respective companies. Lyft and Stripe have also laid off approximately 13% of its workforce as well. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website which tracks tech job cuts, over 130,000 jobs have been lost worldwide in 2022 alone.

Biden Signs into Law a Bill Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Harassment Claims – Key Takeaways

March 4, 2022 | Rob Wiley, P.C.

Dallas Employment Lawyer Fadi Yousef

On March 3, 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law new legislation banning the use of arbitration clauses in employment contracts that force victims of sexual assault and harassment to pursue their claims in private arbitration rather than in open court. The legislation passed Congress with bipartisan support and has been described as one of the most significant workplace reforms in history. It is estimated that about 60 million Americans are subject to arbitration clauses.

The law allows victims of sexual assault and harassment to have their day in court and to speak publicly about their cases. Until now, victims who had signed an arbitration agreement with their employers were forced to bring their claims in a private and largely employer-friendly arbitration process, where cases are typically decided by a single arbitrator instead of a jury.

Arbitration and You: Why You Should Pay Attention If Your Employer Talks About Arbitration

December 11, 2020 | Austin Campbell

austin-campbell So, one day your employer asks you to sign a piece of paper that talks about a “dispute resolution” program, including “arbitration.” Perhaps you instead got paperwork talking about arbitration with your onboarding materials when you started a new job. Or, maybe you just got an email from your employer saying you are now subject to arbitration “as a condition of employment.” This article takes a basic look at what these things mean and why seeing them ought to—at the very least—cause you to sit up and think about what your next move should be.

Arbitration is basically a private court. The parties (including employees and employers) agree beforehand to submit disputes to a private decisionmaker or decisionmakers to reach a final, binding decision. Some arbitration programs require the parties to select an arbitrator or arbitrators from a list of candidates associated with a large dispute resolution company like the American Arbitration Association, and might apply rules set by that company. There is no judge or jury, and the ultimate decision may be kept secret. Appealing an arbitrator’s decision can be almost impossible, and the rules of an arbitration may be quite different than those in a court. As a result, employees may have less of an ability to get evidence from their employer. Continue reading ›