Breathing Life Back into Employment Law Class Actions
The class action had been an important tool in protecting the rights of New York employees. Class actions allow groups of people with relatively low value claims to join together and assert their rights.
But last April, in the AT&T Mobility case, the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the class action by holding companies can enforce class action waivers which would bar future class actions. Companies all over the country began issuing class action waivers and many worried that the class action was heading towards extinction.
Last Friday, however, the National Labor Relations Board tried to resurrect the class action in the employment context. In a written opinion, the NLRB held that "Clearly, an individual who files a class or collective action regarding wages, hours, or working conditions, whether in court or before an arbitrator, seeks to initiate or induce group action and is engaged in conduct protected by Section 7" of the National Labor Relations Act. "Such conduct is not peripheral but central to the act's purposes." See Law.com for more on the NLRB opinion.
The NLRB held that the AT&T Mobility case did not impact employment law class actions because that case was limited to consumer cases as that case involved cell phone contracts and did not have any connection to any employment claims.
The NLRB ruling, however, is subject to judicial review and the courts may strike this ruling down - or they may not.
But the NLRB ruling shows that efforts are afoot to revive the class action in the employment context. The class action is a vital tool that is needed to protect work place rights. Often small cases are ignored because it does not make economic sense to bring modest single claims. The class action solves this problem. Unfortunately, class actions have been abused and they now have a bad reputation as get rich quick schemes for lawyers who earn huge fees and obtain token benefits for their clients. In employment class actions, the benefits are typically substantial and far more meaningful than in other contexts.
