Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410180001
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANK SWOBODA THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Texas state court ruled that under that agreement, Olson had to submit her dispute to arbitration - not to a court. AT&T, which has since acquired NCR, said Olson has no grounds for her claims of sexual discrimination and harassment.
At the time she signed the agreement, just a year after graduating from college in 1982, Olson said, no one mentioned the arbitration clause. She said the company told her she had to sign the contract as part of a promotion she was receiving in the sales office.
More specifically, she said recently from her home in Richardson, Texas, ``I had no knowledge that I had waived my rights to a jury trial.''
So Olson has taken another route to get her day in court. She's filed a class-action suit against the American Arbitration Association, alleging that the panels of arbitrators are unfairly stacked against employees. Most of the panels, Olson argues, consist of white male lawyers from firms that tend to represent employers. Olson has charged the association with violating state law prohibiting deceptive trade practices.
Association officials say the lawsuit has no merit.
Olson is among a growing number of employees who are being asked, as a condition of employment, to sign away their rights to sue in cases involving race, sex or age discrimination. More employers are asking the association to help them develop arbitration programs designed to avoid large jury awards, which are becoming common in employment discrimination cases, particularly in the area of sexual discrimination and harassment.
``In recent months, we have been contacted for help in developing arbitration programs by a number of companies,'' said Toni Griffin, national spokeswoman for the association in New York.
Ironically, this interest in arbitration comes as the number of arbitration cases is actually declining a bit.
Griffin said AAA arbitration cases - which don't constitute all employment arbitration cases - dropped from 562 in 1991 to 503 in 1992, then to 422 last year.
The association's officials said the upsurge in employer interest in arbitration does not necessarily involve cases such as Olson's, where an individual employee has signed an agreement waiving rights. These cases usually are pretty straightforward as to the employee's rights, and the arbitrator's rulings usually are binding.
The problem, according to association officials, is that many employers want to impose arbitration on employees by unilaterally inserting a clause in their employee handbooks saying that all future employment disputes must be submitted to arbitration. In these cases, the employees have signed no documents waiving their rights.
Organized labor takes a dim view of the trend. John Zalusky, who heads the AFL-CIO's office of wages and industrial relations in Washington, wastes no words in expressing his concern.
``Unilateral employer plans to arbitrate employment disputes [are] unfair, unjust and unethical and [are] opposed by organized labor,'' Zalusky said.
In a paper he has prepared on the subject, Zalusky said arbitration ``deprives the worker of the legal and regulatory relief available under law and frustrates the public's interest in discouraging illegal behavior by employers through media coverage of heavy punitive awards to employees.''
Zalusky argues that the American Arbitration Association is simply arming employers in their efforts to deny employees access to traditional legal remedies. The AFL-CIO has been objecting to this private method of resolving disputes since the mid-1980s.
The ``Triple A,'' as the association is commonly known in the labor-relations arena, is not the only group attracting Zalusky's wrath. He notes that this year, the National Academy of Arbitrators, which he describes as the premier association of practicing labor arbitrators, changed its constitution to help employers unilaterally impose arbitration plans, a move he predicts will simply accelerate the trend among businesses. So far, there is little opposition outside of organized labor to the arbitration trend.
Zalusky argues that employers are using arbitration to get around the penalties enacted by Congress and many states for violating employment laws.
He's not apt to get an argument from Meg Olson.
by CNB