We’re not talking about what companies should be legally allowed to do, we’re talking about whether they should be able to receive money from the government.
I don’t understand the SDMB analogy. Posters are not employed by the SDMB, and disputes here do not involve anything either criminal or tortiable.
The Nazis committed genocide. Communism is oppressive. Many of historys’ conservatives did GOOD things while many of historys’ liberals did BAD things. Not all dogs are poodles.
Large companies and large governments are comfortable bedfellows, one will always protect the other, no matter who pays the price and no matter how it has to happen. Haliburton is evil? No more so than our own government. Are there evil people that are employed by Haliburton? No more than are employed by our own government.
This case was a fucking disaster, a horrible travesty and likely one of many that we will never hear about committed by people that WE pay. The best we can do is continue to address the truth of the problem, root out evil where we find it, and stop building these liberal/conservative/democrat/republican fences around one another. There are two kinds of people in the world, good ones and bad ones. Period. There is no blurring of the lines in this case, these were bad guys, but does that mean that Betsy from accounting should lose her job and not be able to feed her kids because these assholes did this?
The answer is no. Just like the ACORN thing was unfair, so is the assessment of Haliburton.
True. But you made an absolute statement. The fact there are nine counter-examples demonstrates that your absolute statement was false.
But some people here a paid-up members. Thus, consideration has passed and mutual promises have been made (member pays, CL gives them a year’s subscription to the board). Disputes wouldn’t sound in criminal law or tort law, as you note, but rather contract law. So why should these claims be arbitrable but not employment claims?
It is no answer to say one’s contract and the other’s tort: liability for tort can be varied by agreement (as when you sign a waiver when you enter a judo tournament or the like).
If someone really thinks they have a breech of contract case, then of course they should be able to take it to court. Why shouldn’t they?
Moderators here do not resolve membership contract disputes, though.
ETA you’re also changing the subject. The subject is about what taxpayers should have to fund, not whether binding arbitration contracts should be illegal.
Well, then, you’re back-pedaling from that assertion that this vote was a referendum on “gang-rape”* to the much more moderated position that it is a question about what sorts of employment dispute resolution forums we should use federal spending to favor. Which, frankly, is a pretty wise course of action on your part.
I made no such assertion. I said that it was a referendum on the subsidization of gang rape.
Do explain how one can support a gang-rape subsidy while not approving of gang-rape. And so, if you contend that Senator X wants to subsidize gang-rape (and here I thought KBR was a construction company! But how do they turn a profit I wonder???), then you must hold that Senator X approves of gang-rape.
Conceivably, one could think there are more important things that preventing gang-rape, and thus support subsidizing an activity that falls under that category even though that activity will lead to gang rapes.
That’s not my position, of course. I’m just explaining.
Well, no one can argue that this is a very defensible position. But it’s hardly a matter of gospel truth.
In other words, reasonable people may disagree on whether garden-variety sexual harassment should be excluded from the list of claims that can be forced into arbitration. Supporting the view that ordinary sexual harassment cases can be settled by an arbiter instead of the courts is something you personally disagree with, but it’s not an evil, depraved point of view.
Yes, the Senator approves of gang rape – or is at least sociopathically indifferent to it – but that doesn’t change the fact that the Franken Amendment was about federal funding, not a “referendum on gang rape”, and I did not (as you falsely alleged) ever say otherwise. I don’t know what hair you’re trying to split here.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry everyone. I misspoke when I said the Dio considers the Franken Amendment a “referendum on gang-rape.” As Dio has taken pains to show (pains that are completely unnecessary, I will add, because the distinction could not be more obvious), it was a referendum on subsidizing gang-rape. Now, while favoring a subsidy for gang-rape does mean you approve of (or at least are indifferent to) the occurrence of gang-rape, it most certainly is not the same thing as voting for gang-rape. Dio is quite right that it is I who am splitting hairs here, and I regret the error.
It’s a real distinction. You certainly wouldn’t sy that voting to defund ACORN was the same as being opposed to voter registration.
“Halliburton/KBR used a clause in her contract requiring disputes to be settled by arbitration to block legal action – a policy which, her lawyer says, has encouraged assaults by creating a climate of impunity.
Franken described it as a denial of justice. “Contractors are using fine print to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court,” he said in a Senate debate.”
That is a misrepresentation of the events in question. The original court found that the arbitration agreement did not protect Halliburton from these types of claims. Litigation on these points was stayed until Halliburton appealed this decision - the appeal was unsuccessful. That decision came down in September of this year.
Now, again, I don’t like what Halliburton did here. But I’m a bit offended by a United States Senator calling the right to appeal “fine print.” It is a protection just as vital to Jamie Leigh Jones as to Halliburton, and we can’t abrogate it for one without weakening it for the other.
I don’t doubt you, Mr. Moto, “I only know what I read in the in the newspapers.”
Please tell me where I can find more and better info on this.
Thank you.
I took my chronology from the cite I posted previously. I hope that helps.
I think you know that Senator Franken was not talking about the right of appeal. His “fine print” was re: the practice of mandatory binding arbitration for cases involving sexual assault, including the particular situation she was in: gang rape, foreign war zone, etc. And “to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court” is the point of the arbitration. The settlements tend to involve the sworn secrecy of victims, in order to help deny future employees their rights too. For profit.
I am proud of Senator Franken for preventing my govt from doing business with companies that require their employees to submit to such treatment (and then appeal it when it is indicated that it is not OK under some circumstances. stay classy KBR.), while leaving those companies free to continue that practice while looking elsewhere for customers. Perhaps, instead they will choose to treat people a little better, but that’s for the accountants to decide.
I do recall reading about this when the story first broke. I think part of my reaction was, “… and why are we still doing business with this company?” I’m happy there’s a Senator who reacts to these things the same way, but can actually *do *something about it.
I think the 30 Nays were “Fuck Franken/Democrats” votes as much as anything. Maybe I give them too much credit. On the one hand it seems like an easy chance for some “Bi-partisan” cred, but then again for most of those Senators, “Bi-partisan” is not what their base wants to hear. Their voters care more about stopping the liberal tyranny!!!1! than they do about rape or four syllable words.
What practice? This was not only barred by a district court but was barred by an appellate court, as I have so helpfully explained several times now. And with this as an appellate decision now it should be impossible for a company to assert a right to arbitration on these matters, even as it likely applies to other grievances an employee might have.
It took the victim four years to get to this point. She was denied her day in court for 4 years. The Franken Amendment is not about the right to appeal anyway, so it’s just a red herring to keep throwing out there.
Why do you want to give my money to a company that would behave this way? That’s the question.