Judge Bemoans Mandatory Arbitration’s Role in Worker Wage Cases

US Supreme Court precedent allowing employers to shunt wage-and-hour claims to arbitration absent certain exceptions “effectively eviscerates years of hard-fought Congressional protections for American workers,” a federal judge said.

Display merchandisers who work for Premium Retail Services Inc. aren’t frequently engaged in interstate commerce, so they don’t qualify for a transportation worker exemption to the Federal Arbitration Act, Judge William G. Young said Tuesday, adding that “Congress is not impotent” to change the rules around which claims can stay in court.

The Supreme Court, which in 2022 expanded the transportation worker carveout’s reach in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, ...