Increase in Number of Workers Subject to Arbitration

January 16, 2022 Alex Colvin, Dean of the Industrial & Labor Relations School at Cornell University has found that more than one-half of all workers are now subject to mandatory arbitration as a non-negotiable term of their employment.

The growth in mandatory employment arbitration clauses coincides closely with a series of Supreme Court rulings that have favored arbitration. In 1992 the percentage of non-union employees subject to arbitration stood at two percent. By the early 2000's, that percentage had risen to almost a quarter of the non-union workforce. Drawing upon a national representative sample of non-union employers from a survey Colvin conducted, mandatory arbitration now covers 56 percent of the non-union labor force. Among employers with 1,000 or more employees, almost two-third, or 65.1 percent of companies have mandatory arbitration for non-union employment disputes.