Raising Awareness of Damage Done By Mandatory Arbitration and Supporting the Fair Act

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Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for all of her hard work on the Equal Rights Amendment and standing up and fighting for women.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues of the Democratic Women's Caucus to emphasize the importance of passing H.R. 1423, the FAIR Act for women in the workplace. I applaud the work of Hank Johnson, who has authored this legislation and, in some cases, worked with constituents over 14 years who are involved in forced arbitration of settlements that seem never to be settled. But statistics say that, if they are settled, usually the woman loses.

I might say that the Judiciary Committee is marking up this bill right now, as we speak. I hope it comes to the floor. We should have strong, bipartisan support for this injustice and pass the FAIR bill.

Forced arbitration is a trap. Binding a victim of workplace misconduct to arbitration, particularly anyone subjected to harassment or discrimination, is just plain wrong. Forced arbitration denies survivors a fair shot at justice. In fact, most employees do not even know they have entered into such an agreement until an incident occurs.

So not only has a person been harassed or had their rights violated at work, but now the employer gets to dictate how the matter is settled. How fair is that?

I want to recognize a woman present in the gallery this evening who knows all too well the deficiencies of forced arbitration agreements.

Karen Ward is a distinguished former partner at the New York accounting firm of Ernst & Young, which is refusing to let her take her sexual harassment case to a public courtroom because of a forced arbitration contract clause.

Not only is this unfair, it is expensive, as Ms. Ward has told us she has already spent $185,000 to arbitrate her claims because of a provision in her contract that requires her to split the cost of the dispute resolution.

Ernst & Young and other firms with similar employment contract terms claim that forced arbitration is more efficient and streamlined. They don't tell you that the process is hidden from the public, that people can't see it. It is not transparent. And they don't tell you how secrecy surrounding arbitration settlements only helps perpetuate the problem of harassment or discrimination in the workplace. And it is costly emotionally and financially, as her case illustrates, with the $185,000 cost so far.

Ms. Ward has said that she has heard from dozens of women bound by arbitration agreements. She said: ``They see that the cost can caution financial ruin and they choose to live with injustice.''

In other words, the system is built like a wall against the rights of women, costing them out of the process, making it totally unfair to them.

Underreporting and secretive settlements have roles in creating and cementing a culture of harassment in the workplace.

Passing the FAIR Act is an important step toward empowering all employees to report workplace misconduct and retain the option of seeking the remedy that they so choose; and it creates an incentive for every employer to focus on preventing these incidents before they occur, not to try to conceal them, case by case, knowing that it will never reach the light of day and that the employees will never win. There is no incentive to even bring a case for justice.

So Ms. Ward's fight has shone a light on this disturbing and unfair corporate behavior, and I am proud to fight alongside her and with my like-minded colleagues in the Women's Caucus and in Congress to change this and to support and pass the FAIR Act.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue and so many others.

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