
Riot Games workers walk out to protest forced arbitration - kimsk112
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-riot-games-walkout-protest-forced-arbitration-20190506-story.html
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bayareanative
Good for them. Respect.

In general, tech needs to move to more co-op, employee-&customer-owned,
organized labor shops with labor on the board of directors. Mandatory
arbitration for any area is BS because for-profit arbitrators are paid to be
pseudo-"unbiased" while most often ruling in favor of who pays the bills.

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terryschiavo22
Arbitration keeps the court system less full. It has a purpose that everyone
ignores. How about solving the underlying problem that brought about
arbitration: courts being saddled by too many frivolous lawsuits?

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bsamuels
i dont think riot's arbitration clause exists because management is worried
about the legal system having too many court cases

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stephenr
I spent a week or so on site as a contractor (well technically a contractor
for a company with a contract).. I certainly didn't leave thinking "hey these
guys have it great".

I still keep thinking about their company policy: employees were _expected_ to
play their game every day. Can you imagine if McDonalds said they expected
staff to eat at least one meal every day in-store?

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stevenwoo
I have worked at a McDonald's and at least when I worked there, workers got
something like $5 credit per eight hour shift back in the 1980's. Most people
used it to eat a meal but sometimes we would trade credit with KFC or Pizza
Hut workers for variety.

I have also worked in games on smaller teams and considered it a
responsibility to play the game to make sure that everything I could influence
worked well (or I changed it so that it did) or that I could evaluate other
parts of the game versus user expectation/current state of the art. Maybe
things are different on larger teams/projects.

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djakjxnanjak
This probably reveals how out of touch I am... but I always assumed people in
the back could just get free food. Is the manager watching? Would fellow
employees narc on you?

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stevenwoo
You could take food but it probably depends on the manager on shift, at the
store I worked at the manager was the owner so she was pretty strict when she
was around (distinctly remember coworkers joking about how she was pretty OCD
about counting cups/sauce packets because that all cost her money so she
emphasized being stingy about distributing those/accounting for loss).
Coworkers did not have the same amount of skin in the game unless the managers
held them accountable for inventory levels.

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tortarga
Being in the US, which from an outsiders perspective appears to have little in
the way of employee rights, what risk do these workers face of simply being
fired and replaced by the company?

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brighter2morrow
That would be illegal. US workers have right to discuss workplace conditions
and can't be fired for trying to start a union. Also this is in California
which has further worker protrections on top of that.

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joshuaheard
It's not "forced arbitration", it's "contractual arbitration" which means both
sides agree to it. Employment contracts are freely negotiable, including a
contractual arbitration clause.

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sovnade
"It says right here in the contract that I can sexually harass you and suffer
essentially no consequences. You signed it."

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lixtra
Such a clause would be nil in most jurisdictions.

EDIT: to be more specific: if you get raped at work, the criminal part against
the rapist goes to court as usual. The case against the company because of
establishing a rape culture and you seeking compensation goes to arbitration.

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dd36
So it would be nil only if criminal charges could be brought.

