Labor News & Commentary September 22 some sexual misconduct claimants prefer private arbitration & more

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/september-22-2025/

By Ted Parker

Ted Parker is a student at Harvard Law School and a member of the Labor and Employment Lab.

In today’s news and commentary, lawmakers and voters struggle over pro-worker ballot initiatives in Missouri, shortcomings appear in California’s deal with Uber and Lyft, and some sexual misconduct claimants prefer private arbitration.

In Missouri, Republicans lawmakers approved a ballot initiative earlier this month to make it harder to pass future ballot initiatives, according to reporting in Bloomberg. Currently, initiatives only need a simple majority to pass. Under the new plan, they will need to get majorities in each of eight districts. The effort comes after successful ballot initiatives for a $15 minimum wage and paid sick leave, both of which were later gutted in the legislature. This is part of a larger struggle playing out in many states between lawmakers and voters over the latter’s ability to pass pro-worker laws through voter initiatives. Voters struck back last week by launching a petition of their own to add a constitutional amendment that would preserve the current simple majority rule and make it harder for lawmakers to gut future initiatives.

Ajayan and Finlay recently covered a deal struck between California and Uber and Lyft allowing rideshare drivers to unionize in return for other concessions from the state. Now, further reporting from Law360 highlights some shortcomings of the deal for drivers. In particular, though the current deal does provide for some mandatory subjects of bargaining (paid leave, a grievance process, and an appeals process for deactivated drivers), earnings and benefits above the current minimums are explicitly voluntary subjects of bargaining. Additionally, the deal is silent on the right to strike. Shannon Liss-Riordan criticized these concessions to the rideshare companies: “Why do lawmakers have to reach a deal with Uber and Lyft? [They] make the law; they can just tell Uber and Lyft what the rules are. . . . Do they think Uber and Lyft are going to leave California?”

Finally, Bloomberg reports that, three years after the passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA), a significant number of workers are opting to pursue their sexual misconduct claims through private arbitration rather than the courts. While the deck may be stacked against workers in arbitration, it is at least private (and often confidential). These workers fear that publicly filing a case in court could open them up to discrimination from future employers. Of course, EFAA was designed to allow for this possibility: workers can “elect[]” to invalidate their pre-dispute arbitration agreements, but they don’t have to. The sad fact is that workers are now being forced to choose between an unfair process or possible future discrimination.