Forced Arbitration

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, it has been a busy, productive, and truly bipartisan week here in the U.S. Senate.

After days of fruitful cooperation from both sides, the Senate is now a few moments away from approving one of the most significant changes to employment law in years, eliminating for good the awful practice of forcing victims of sexual harassment and assault into arbitration.

An hour from now, we will be able to say this: The House has acted; the Senate has acted; and we are sending bipartisan forced arbitration reform to the President's desk. It is a momentous reform bill and one that is painfully overdue.

For decades, arbitration clauses have been routinely tucked into the fine print of employment contracts. Today, they impact about 60 million Americans. And many people may not even realize such clauses affect them, until it is too late.

All of us have heard the searing testimonies of those who have faced harassment or abuse at work, only to discover their jobs offered precious little in accountability.

Countless careers have been derailed or undone. Worse still, countless lives have been forever damaged. And for decades, workplace practices, like mandatory arbitration, have perpetuated cultures of abuse and unaccountability.

We can't ignore a basic reality of these clauses. They deprive victims of sexual harassment and assault of their basic rights by mandating they seek remedy only behind closed doors of private arbitration, with no other alternative.

This is wrong; it is unfair; and it is about time it changed. And that is exactly what we will accomplish through this bipartisan legislation. It will not only ensure that those who have suffered sexual harassment or assault have the option to go to court if they choose, it will also be retroactive. People locked into these clauses right now will benefit just as much as new employees will in the future. That is an important point that hasn't gotten enough attention. It will undo the pernicious effect of these clauses that already exist.

I want to thank my friend and fellow New Yorker, Senator Gillibrand, for spending years advocating for this legislation. This accomplishment wouldn't be possible without her leadership and her commitment to working with the other side.

Likewise, I want to thank Senator Graham and Senator Ernst for reaching across the aisle and working with us to get this bill done.

Yesterday, Senators Graham and Ernst met in my office, and we came to an agreement to move this forward. And we very much appreciate that. It was truly a collaborative effort by the Senate, and thanks to everyone's work, forced arbitration for sexual assault and harassment will soon be a thing of the past.

As I said in my very first speech as majority leader, Democrats will always be open to working with Members of the other side of the aisle when the opportunity arises. The differences between the parties are real and cannot be ignored, but we can neither ignore the genuine chances for progress when both parties agree to move forward on certain topics.

Last year, it was precisely this majority's commitment to bipartisan cooperation that cleared the path for historic hate crimes legislation. Together, we also passed a historic jobs and supply chain bill, which we hope is enacted soon.

And together, Democrats and Republicans secured the first stand-alone infrastructure package in years.

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