Editor’s note: “Time’s Up” is a movement against sexual harassment. It was founded on January 1, 2018, by Hollywood celebrities, in response to the Harvey Weinstein effect and #MeToo. As of February 2018, it has raised $20 million for its legal defense fund and gathered over 200 volunteer lawyers.
Cheri Bustos, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on CNN Money to discuss why the time to take real action to end sexual harassment in the workplace is right now and Congress has the power to make it happen. In December, Congresswoman Bustos introduced the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017 with bipartisan and bicameral [both Chambers of Congress] support. This legislation was recently endorsed in a letter to House Majority and Minority leadership from all 56 Attorneys General, from all 50 states, Territories, and the District of Columbia.
A summary of the bill follows.
Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017 would allow survivors of sexual harassment or discrimination, who are subject to forced arbitration clauses in their contracts, to opt out and instead take their cases to court. Forced arbitration clauses prevent survivors of sexual harassment from discussing the nature or basis of their complaint. If an employee’s contract or employee handbook includes a forced arbitration clause, the employee is likely to have signed away his or her right to a jury trial whether or not they are aware of the clause. Employees are far more likely to win cases that go to trial than cases that go through the arbitration process.
“The missing element for the early stages of the Time’s Up or the Me Too movement was that, you have people who are waitresses, people who work in jewelry stores, people who clean rooms at hotels that didn’t have the same level of protections that we were talking about for Members of Congress, for example.”
“The reason that I wrote this piece of legislation–which actually dated many months before the Me Too movement–was that I read [a] story in the Washington Post. [It] laid out in very graphic and sad details about women who were exposed to chronic and ongoing sexual harassment and had no recourse, because of these forced arbitration clauses that were in their employment contracts. And, I think [it] is important to know that there are 60 million Americans who live under these forced arbitration clauses. And it doesn’t mean they signed away their rights. It can be as simple as a boss handing over the employee handbook, and by the mere acknowledgement that you have a handbook, you have signed away your rights. And if there is a case that you have been sexually harassed, your only recourse is to go through these arbitrators, [who] are paid for by the company; 80 percent of the time, the employee loses. All we’re saying is let’s give the victims of sexual harassment more choices. If they want to go to court, let them. This forced silence that has come out of these sexual harassment cases has led to more sexual harassment.”
“We already have bipartisan support in the House. We have an identical bill in the Senate with bipartisan support. We have every one of the Attorneys General saying that they support this…. From a business perspective, Microsoft, I’m very proud of them. They announced they not only support our bill, they are not going to wait for this slow-moving Federal Government to do anything about it. They are on their own saying, any arbitration clauses in their contracts are null and void. So, let’s let the businesses take the lead on this and, while that’s happening, on a parallel track here in Congress, we’ll keep working through the process and work harder to get more bipartisan support.”