Justices crush worker rights

A DIVIDED U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to employers Monday by ruling that businesses can prohibit workers from banding together to fight for better pay and conditions.

In decision that could impact 25 million nonunionized employees, the court’s five conservative members held that individual employees can be required by workplace agreements to bring only individual claims and to resolve them through arbitration, not the courts.

While Monday’s decision involved pay issues, the outcome could also apply to workplace discrimination and other disputes if employee contracts specify they must be dealt with in one-on-one arbitration, experts said.

“As a matter of policy, these questions are surely debatable,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch (photo inset) in the majority decision. “But as a matter of law, the answer is clear.”

In the dissent opinion from the court’s liberals, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision “egregiously wrong” and likely to lead to “huge underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of vulnerable workers.”

Ginsburg said “congressional action is urgently in order.”

New York officials and labor leaders slammed the decision.

“This is a devastating decision that will have terrible consequences for American workers,” Acting New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said in a tweet. “We will continue to do everything in our power to protect New York workers from those who try to exploit them.”

“The Supreme Court just handed a hammer to Goliath and tied the hands of David,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “Individual workers living in poverty now have to fight on their own against companies with billions of dollars in capital.”

Gov. Cuomo echoed Ginsburg’s call for congressional action.

“At a time when labor is already under attack, the Supreme Court’s decision will allow companies to severely restrict the options their employees have to fight back against workplace violations like racial discrimination and sexual harassment,” Cuomo said in a statement calling on Congress “to address the dangerous consequences of this faulty ruling and pass legislation to protect the rights of workers.”

The ruling reflected a yearslong pattern at the Supreme Court of limiting class actions and favoring employer-favored arbitration over lawsuits in the courts, generally preferred by workers.

The Trump administration backed the businesses, reversing the position the Obama administration took in favor of employees.