From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

The Teamsters union start a substack newsletter because of
media hostility to labor; it seeks bridges while the media
only plays the divide and conquer game:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5638970-teamsters-substack-newsletter/

One issue with broad support among people but with
no support among business leaders is opposition to
forced arbitration:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-180994436

You’ve Agreed to Arbitration Six
Times Today and Didn’t Even Notice

Dec 08, 2025

Good morning!

Your alarm goes off. You reach for your phone. The device, the
operating system, and the wireless plan that connects it all come
with binding arbitration clauses buried deep in terms you
accepted long ago but never read.

You order your coffee on an app to save time. You’ve just agreed
to arbitration. You tap your contactless transit pass to commute
to work. Arbitration. You check the status of a package from
Amazon. Arbitration.

By the time you actually start the day, you’ve probably agreed to
arbitration multiple times without even realizing it. Not because
you’re careless, but because arbitration is designed to live in
the background — quiet, automatic, unacknowledged.

But what exactly is arbitration? In simple terms, it’s fine-print
contract language that replaces the right to sue. Instead of
taking a dispute to court, you agree to settle it through a
private third-party decision-maker — an arbitrator — whose
judgment is typically final and cannot be appealed.

In theory, arbitration is supposed to reduce the burden of cost
on both parties and improve the efficiency of dispute resolution.
In reality, it allows employers to circumvent the justice system,
especially when it comes to cases of discrimination or
harassment.

So, if arbitration is so ingrained in our everyday lives, why
don’t we ever notice it?

Think about that “terms and conditions” box you check. Buried in
the fine print is an arbitration clause. In a world where
everything is “on demand” and attention spans are rapidly
decreasing, consumers aren’t going to read a lengthy document
full of legal jargon that waives their litigation rights.
Corporations know this, and they’re capitalizing on it, using
longer and longer arbitration clauses with increasingly complex
language. Uber’s 2024 terms of use update featured a whopping
14-page arbitration clause.

These legal documents are often buried in one-sided contracts
that businesses impose as mandatory conditions of employment,
which a potential employee has no real leverage to challenge.
Workers are faced with the choice of either accepting the
contract as-is or losing a job opportunity. And it’s no surprise
that the companies that abuse these contracts most often are some
of the most anti-worker, like Amazon and Walmart.

It’s worth drawing a line here, not between forced arbitration
and no arbitration, but between arbitration without power and
arbitration with it.

Union workers have power to fight back against this unfair
system, because for them, arbitration isn’t buried in onboarding
paperwork — it’s bargained for up front. Unionized workplaces are
governed by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), instead of
individual employment contracts. A CBA typically defines the
arbitration process very clearly, putting more power in the hands
of workers to object to legal violations.

Other than the use of the word “arbitration,” this
well-established system used by organized labor has nothing in
common with the take-it-or-leave-it, sign-your-rights-away kind
of arbitration corporations try to impose.

Instead, union workers help decide how the process will work
through their bargaining representative, including receiving paid
time off to participate in arbitration, defining what the steps
are, and even selecting who the arbitrator can be. The result? A
more structured process between two organizations who both have
strong resources and experience and are thus more likely to find
a balanced and fair resolution. But most American workers are not
union members and do not have access to this extra line of
defense.

With such an imbalance of power in favor of Corporate America,
it’s encouraging to see a bicameral, bipartisan coalition in
Congress emerging in support of the Faster Labor Contracts Act —
a Teamsters-backed bill that would level the playing field for
workers. One of the FLCA’s most important provisions would create
a binding arbitration process to ensure that workers who vote to
unionize receive a first contract in a timely manner, as they’re
supposed to under the law.

Yet politicians like Senator Rand Paul, who have no qualms with
Big Business abusing arbitration clauses, have led a major outcry
against this pro-worker proposal. Their alligator tears make it
clear that their real objection isn’t to arbitration as a matter
of principle but to workers having access to it on equal terms as
major corporations.

Arbitration has become an invisible, automatic part of our
everyday lives. But invisibility isn’t inherently neutral.
Someone built this system, and someone benefits from its
subtlety. When arbitration is negotiated collectively and with
the participation of those who will be impacted by it the most,
it can be a fair and functional way to settle disagreements. When
it’s hidden in fine print and imposed without awareness, it
becomes a way to ensure that harm can happen quietly.

We may begin our days tapping our screens, agreeing to terms we
never actually considered, but we shouldn’t have to. Arbitration
is already all around us. The question now is whether we want to
see it — and if we want to have a say in what it becomes.




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