Last year, in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the
Supreme Court
upheld a class arbitration waiver in a consumer contract.
Now, however, the National Labor Relations Board has struck down a
similar waiver in the employment context, holding that requiring
employees to submit all employment-related disputes to individual
arbitration is an unfair labor practice.
In D.R. Horton, Inc. and Michael Cuda, an
employer mandated that all employees sign a Mutual Arbitration
Agreement ("MAA"). The MAA provided that employees would
submit all employment-related disputes to final and binding
arbitration, that the arbitrator could hear only individual claims,
and that employees waived the right to resolve employment-related
disputes in civil proceedings. In other words, the MAA prohibited
employees from pursuing employment-related claims collectively.
