Labor Department targets Hobby Lobby

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge ruled that agreements signed by employees of Oklahoma-based arts and crafts company Hobby Lobby requiring them to submit to arbitration rather than go to court in work disputes are unenforceable.

 

The ruling by the government's labor enforcement agency, announced Wednesday, could potentially undermine a common practice used by employers to avoid litigation under federal labor laws.

 

"This is a dramatic decision," said David Rosenfeld, attorney for the Committee to Preserve the Religious Right to Organize, the group that brought the charges against Hobby Lobby. "If the board affirms it and the courts affirm it, it basically undermines this whole tendency of employers to implement these arbitration agreements [with their employees]."

 

Catherine Fisk, co-director of the University of California at Irvine's Center in Law, Society and Culture, agreed with Rosenfeld's assessment, calling the judge's decision "a very clever analysis" that could potentially apply to a wide variety of employment disputes.