Comment by Dr_tldr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dr_tldr | Hacker News Reader

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The paper that you cited doesn't contradict anything I said or support what you're saying:

"...even the more refined recent studies show that lower-paid employees still had quite respectable success rates in arbitration, ranging from about 21% to almost 40%. That compares very favorably with the 23% win rate of union-represented employees that I found in one of the oldest and most respected labor arbitration systems in the country."

The author is comparing arbitration and arbitration, not arbitration and courts. Is there any place in the article where he addresses the research in the other paper, or is he just saying "it's not that bad."

Also, I'm not sure what the existence of insurance against employee claims has to do with the claim that wages would be lowered? Do you have any evidence for a connection other than inductive reasoning?

>"Experienced plaintiffs' attorneys have estimated that only about 5% of the individuals with an employment claim who seek help from the private bar are able to obtain counsel."

>"One study concluded that litigation is not a plausible option for employees below around the $60,000 income level, but arbitration is a realistic alternative"

>" The American Arbitration Association in one study found a winning rate of 63% for arbitral claimants. 41 In a much-criticized system operated by the securities industry, employees still prevailed 55% of the time, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office." By contrast, plaintiffs' success rates in separate surveys of federal court and EEOC trials were only 14.9% and 16.8%, respectively."

Did you read any of the paper at all?

...uh, still comparing apples to oranges, I see, and the American Arbitration Association hasn't published their full dataset, but according to their internal study that contradicts external studies, it's great? Here's a paper that digs into this a bit more:

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...

So if people don't have access to legal representation below a certain income level, the solution is not to increase accessibility to courts or to allow them to represent themselves in court, but instead to set up binding arbitration where they also have no representation? Do you feel that in abstraction, a neutral observer would reach that conclusion?

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