"Google employees launch campaign to end all forced arbitration",  15 Jan 2019

Google workers launched an organized campaign on Tuesday to persuade their employer and the tech industry as a whole to get rid of policies that they claim keep discrimination complaints behind closed doors...

Mandatory arbitration generally requires workers to resolve discrimination claims through a private arbiter, often a retired judge or other lawyer, rather than through the courts — a process that the tech workers say means fewer rights for them. In arbitration, for example, tech workers say there is no way for them to obtain possibly damaging company documents.

“This practice affects at least 60 million workers in the US alone,” the group said in a post on blogging platform Medium. “Ending forced arbitration is the gateway change needed to transparently address inequity in the workplace.”...

Thousands of Google employees participated in a mass walkout in November to protest the company's handling of senior executives accused of sexual misconduct.

After the walkout, tech companies including Google, Facebook, Airbnb and eBay in November ended mandatory arbitration for claims of sexual harassment, but they left it intact for other forms of alleged worker discrimination...