Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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Google has yielded to employee demands to eliminate its policy of mandatory arbitration of employment disputes.

Google’s concession to collective labor action could provide momentum to convert workplace protests surrounding the mandatory arbitration of sexual assault and harassment claims into a national movement to end mandatory arbitration for all employment disputes.

At the end of February, news outlets reported that Google will no longer require employees to resolve workplace disputes through mandatory arbitration. Nor will the tech giant enforce agreements prohibiting class actions. See Debra Cassens Weiss, “Google ends mandatory arbitration of workplace disputes and ban on employee class actions,” ABA Journal (Feb. 25) (available at http://bit.ly/2Uwe1GG); Gerrit De Vynck & Josh Eidelson, Google Will Stop Making Employees Waive Class Action Rights, Bloomberg (Feb. 21) (available at https://bloom.bg/2J0WPrA).