Supreme Court hears case on employeesʼ rights

Issue involves case against Murphy Oil

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court opened a high-profile term earlier this week with a case about employees’ rights that could affect an estimated 25 million workers.

The case is of considerable importance to employers and their workers because it involves how employees can complain about pay and conditions in the workplace.

The issue is whether businesses can force employees to individually use arbitration to resolve disputes. The case pits labor laws intended to allow workers to band together, passed as part of the New Deal in the 1930s, against an older law encouraging the use of arbitration, instead of the courts, which was passed in the 1920s.

The case before the Supreme Court is actually a consolidation of three different court cases: Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, Ernst & Young, et al v. Morris and the National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc.

The case involving Murphy Oil goes back to 2010, when an employee at its facility in Calera, Alabama, filed a collective action against Murphy Oil with three other employees. But the company had an arbitration agreement that employees signed when applying for the job that required employees “to waive the right to pursue class and collective actions before an arbitrator and mandates that certain employment-related disputes be arbitrated rather than litigated in a court of law,” according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court by attorneys for Murphy Oil.

The case wound up being dismissed because of the arbitration agreement, but, after the employee filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, the board found Murphy Oil violated the National Labor Relations Act through the agreement. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals then found in favor of Murphy, leading the case to the Supreme Court.

Oral arguments

Justice Neil Gorsuch, in his first full term on the bench, was silent during an otherwise lively argument Monday in which the justices seemed closely divided.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seeming to speak for the court’s liberal wing, said the importance of collec-

tive action is “there is strength in numbers. You have to protect the individual worker in a situation where he can’t protect himself.”

The conservative justices appeared to have a different view of the case.

Chief Justice John Roberts sounded concerned about a ruling for the workers, which he said “would invalidate contracts for 25 million employees.” That’s the estimated number of non-union workers who have contracts with the individual arbitration provision that is at the heart of the case.

Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out a different concern of his own, noting that he did not see a way for the employers to win without “undermining and changing radically” the labor laws that he referred to as “the entire heart of the New Deal.”

Amy Howe of the Scotusblog reported that the court seemed likely to uphold the employment agreements, noting that the four more liberal justices are unlikely to side with the employers, while Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy and Justice Samuel Alito seemed to indicate in their questions that they were in favor of the employers. Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas were silent during the arguments.

An added twist to the case was that the Obama administration had backed employees in the dispute. Now, the Trump administration is backing employers.

A federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, was permitted to defend the original position, meaning that two government lawyers argued against each other Monday. Ginsburg has said that the unusual lineup was “a first for me in the nearly 25 years I’ve served on the court.”

A decision is expected by the spring.