> How will the employees enforce their choice if not by forcing the employer to put it into their employment contract?
These provisions are forced onto employees by employer at first place. Put the choice in the contract. The employee is free to seek arbitration or not. Of course, you can always claim the employee isn't forced to sign that contract, but there is an obvious power imbalance in any case.
Whenever I've gotten a job offer for $120k+ I desperately needed any job offer to keep food on the table and only got one offer and had to sign a variety of ridiculous contracts or else I'd become homeless. Occasionally I was already living out of my car and very thankful to get any offer at all.
Just because my work is worth a lot, doesn't mean I have tons of opportunities falling out of the sky.
These provisions are forced onto employees by employer at first place. Put the choice in the contract. The employee is free to seek arbitration or not. Of course, you can always claim the employee isn't forced to sign that contract, but there is an obvious power imbalance in any case.