Independence Day

     This week celebrates the anniversary of the country's Declaration of Independence.  Cold beer, hot dogs and burgers sizzling on grills, fireworks sparkling in the night sky, and flags fluttering will remind everyone how great America is.  But there are many who are feeling sick about America's future, especially with Anthony Kennedy's plan to retire.

     Kennedy's retirement and the prospect of an even more conservative justice sitting on the Supreme Court certainly adds to the oppression the current heat wave is spreading across the northeast.  Yet, even when Kennedy was on the Court, workers in America suffered setbacks to their rights.

     Earlier in the Court's term, the conservative justices, including Kennedy, decided in favor of businesses when they sided with Epic Systems Corp. against Lewis, ruling that businesses can require employees to use a company's arbitration process rather than having to litigate disputes in individual or class action lawsuits.  Now corporations can avoid the legal system and conceal any abuse against workers, limiting the public scrutiny lawsuits would have exposed them to.

     This case parallels earlier ones that upheld corporations' right to force consumers into resolving their claims against businesses through an individual arbitration process set up by a given corporation.  These clauses effectually disable workers and consumers from challenging corporations through class action lawsuits, which is their only genuine means of fighting the daunting power of corporations.  Being funneled into an arbitration process that blatantly serves the interests of the employer or the company abolishes what should be every American's inalienable right to seek redress for grievances in a fair legal venue.  When workers have wages stolen or consumers suffer from fraudulent business practices they are limited to an arbitration hearing that is the same as having chickens guarded by foxes.

      Another setback for workers is the Janus Decision.  Once again, Kennedy joined his fellow conservatives and ruled in favor of the employer.  Yes, there are those who will argue that Mark Janus had his right to free speech violated when he was compelled to pay the agency fee to the union whose politics he found unpalatable.  The public union to whom he submitted that "fee" should have released him from any financial obligation and let him negotiate his employment contract individually.  It would have been interesting to see if he continued to accrue the equivalent salary and benefits had he been on his own.

     In any case, the real substance of this Supreme Court decision reflects the intended consequence those conservative justices envision.  Like their fellow conservatives in congress and like Trump, these men believe that rights and privileges naturally belong to those in positions of power.  Workers and consumers are of little consequence when measured against the magnates of American business.  They are necessary to churn the engine of the economy, but they need to remain relegated to their appropriate station in the American scheme. Or is that American dream?  Happy Independence Day.