“Your last chance to negotiate / Send in your seconds / See if they can set the record straight.”— Lin-Manuel Miranda
On Monday, former Solicitor General Paul Clement and current Principal Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall will argue against workers and the National Relations Labor Board (NLRB or the Board) in front of the Supreme Court to resolve this question: whether workplace arbitration agreements that ban class actions violate federal labor laws.
In a peculiar case, and perhaps a microcosm of our times, Monday’s argument pits the Justice Department directly against the NLRB.
As highlighted by USA Today, last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told first-year law students at Georgetown University Law Center: “We will have two arguments by government representatives on opposite sides of the issue. That will be a first for me in the 25 years I’ve served on the court.” Whereas under Obama, the Justice Department argued that companies could not force workers to file cases alone through arbitration, under Trump, “the office reconsidered the issue and has reached the opposite conclusion.”
FOOTNOTE 4 