Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act.

Forced arbitration deprives workers of the choice to have their day in court. When companies impose forced arbitration clauses, they choose every aspect of the process. They choose the mediator; they choose the location; and they choose the terms of the relief.

This is a lose-lose scenario, and it disproportionately harms workers, particularly women and communities of color, but it imposes enormous consequences for everyone.

You sign a contract for car repair, for car rental, for any consumer transaction, and when you need that car rental, hidden in those contracts is a prohibition from you taking any claim to court. No choice, no notion, even, for the majority of people that this fundamental right to that choice to sue an unscrupulous corporation is being taken away from you when you sign that contract.

Madam Speaker, I think of this bill as a bill for the little guy or the little woman. Women and people of color forced into arbitration face mostly White male arbitrators in environments that heavily favor corporate interests.

When musician Jay-Z entered arbitration without a single Black arbitrator in the room, he asked for ``neutrals of color.'' But only three suggested alternatives were Black, one of whom was a partner at the law firm representing the opposing party.

Eliminating forced arbitration would open the courthouse doors for women, for workers of color, for poor folks across this country, advancing social equity and aiding the fight against discrimination. But it is also the right thing for every single consumer to be able to pursue this right to a day in court.

Just last week, President Biden signed into law my bill with Representative Cheri Bustos to ban forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault. That will protect the right of 60 million workers to a fair day in court. And that is just the people who are subject to employment contracts.

On top of that, it will apply, and it will apply retroactively, to all the contracts around sexual assault and sexual harassment. That is huge progress.

What is good enough in cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment--and that bill passed in a bipartisan and bicameral way--is good enough for all workers.

It is time to take the next step by passing this bill to extend these protections to a fair day in court across the board.

Again, we emphasize that if somebody wants arbitration, it doesn't stop that route, but it does say you can't be forced only into this and into denying your day in court.

Now, let's also be clear that the FAIR Act is carefully crafted to protect unions. It preserves essential union bargaining power while creating freedoms for nonunionized workers. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have introduced an amendment that would undermine that power. This cannot happen. We cannot allow our Republican colleagues to undermine unions and the foundation of our middle class.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass the FAIR Act, and I thank Congressman Hank Johnson for his leadership.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, one of the things that we have heard repeated a number of times, as the gentleman from Rhode Island suggested and the gentlewoman from Washington just said, is that if you go to arbitration, the company picks the arbitrators, and that is it. That is not, in fact, correct.

Courts police the fundamental fairness of the arbitration process. If there is a process that is fundamentally unfair, the courts will modify it until it is fair. So, that is a misconception.

Furthermore, it has also been suggested that it is by the whim of the arbitrator what the result is. That is exactly what Mr. Cicilline, I believe, said. That also is erroneous.

If an arbitrator writes a decision that manifests a disregard of the governing law, like the soldier who had been in arbitration for 8 years that he suggested, the courts will vacate, strike down, that arbitration award.

It is important to know those premises before you decide what to do on this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Fitzgerald).

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