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As we previously reported, the Fair Arbitration Now coalition is holding a press conference and lobby day in Washington, D.C. today.

At the press conference (at noon today at the Senate Dirksen Office Building, Room 608), the coalition will release the results of a major national poll conducted by Lake Research Partners detailing how likely voters view mandatory binding arbitration and revealing support for the passage of the Arbitration Fairness Act.  (We'll post the poll on the blog later today.)

Lawmakers, consumers and employees will outline the consequences of forced arbitration clauses, which are hidden in the fine print of employment, cell phone, credit card, retirement account, home building and nursing home contracts, to name a few. Just by taking a job or buying a product or service, individuals are forced to give up their right to go to court if they are harmed by a company. Because the private system of forced arbitration benefits companies and disadvantages consumers and employees, more and more industries are using forced arbitration to evade accountability. 

The bill to ban forced arbitration is supported by a coalition of dozens of organizations ranging from Public Citizen, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Employment Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice to the National Consumer Voice for Long-Term Care, Home Owners Against Deficient Dwellings and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. 

Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Representative Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) will be present today, as will consumers and employees from Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, who will discuss their battles with forced arbitration. In particular, reporters will hear from Jamie Leigh Jones, of Houston, Texas, who was raped by co-workers while working for a Halliburton subsidiary in Iraq. Her company said she couldn?t go to court because the employment agreement she signed required her claims to be settled through arbitration. They will also hear from David Kurth, of Burlington, Wis., whose father died as a result of poor care he received in a nursing home. When the family tried to sue, the nursing home claimed the paperwork a family member had signed when the father was admitted required the matter to go to binding arbitration. 

After the press conference, they will visit their lawmakers to urge passage of the Arbitration Fairness Act (H.R. 1020), which would make arbitration voluntary instead of forced.

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