This is one of those cases where I really, really hope there's something going on that I'm not seeing. Otherwise, I'm going to be pretty depressed.
There was a vote in the Senate a few days ago on an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill that related to the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former KBR employee who worked in the "Green Zone." Here's her story:
When Jones signed her contract to work with Halliburton, there was a clause in the contract that in the event she is injured on the job and wants to try and sue the company, she would be forced to submit to mandatory binding arbitration.
According to her complaint, she was gang-raped in the Green Zone by several of her fellow Halliburton employees. When she reported the incident to her employers, they conducted a rape test with a kit, but then seemingly tried to cover the incident up by locking her in a shipping container for more than 24 hours without food or water. They even posted armed guards around the container, and warned her that if she left Iraq to seek medical treatment, she would lose her job. She managed to get a cell phone from a sympathetic guard, and call her father. Her father contacted their member of Congress (Ted Poe - R), who immediately called the State Department and dispatched agents to free her.
After she was freed, both she and her Congressman tried to get the Pentagon or the DoJ to prosecute the people responsible, but nothing happened. No investigation was conducted of any sort, either. Because a criminal case appears to have no chance of going forward at this point (the incident in question occurred in 2007), she then tried to launch a civil suit against Halliburton. However, Halliburton's contract requires, as I mentioned before, that she would have to undergo mandatory binding arbitration. Even worse, Halliburton gets to pick the arbitration judge, the results can't be appealed, and any settlement has to be kept secret.
Obviously she did not want to go through with that, so she sued in federal court for the right to take Halliburton to a regular court of law, instead of an arbitrator. Just recently a Federal Appellate Court ruled that her incident does not fall within the terms of the contract since it was not on the job. So she will now be going back to court to actually sue Halliburton in a normal fashion.
That's sad, but the truly mind blowing part is coming up. The Senate approved a measure Tuesday by a vote of 68-30 prohibiting the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration. The measure is going to force companies to change policies that do not allow employees who attempt to sue for sexual harassment, assault or rape to have their day in court.
It's hard for me to believe that 30 senators voted against helping rape victims to have their day in court rather than go through binding arbirtration with the arbitrator named by their empoyer. Sadly, it's not shocking to me that both Sessions and Shelby voted against the amendment.
Is there another side to this that I'm not seeing? How could our senators possibly justify a vote supporting binding arbitration clauses for civil claims of "sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention?"
It's highly disturbing that a vote like this would skew so heavily among party lines.
There was a vote in the Senate a few days ago on an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill that related to the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former KBR employee who worked in the "Green Zone." Here's her story:
When Jones signed her contract to work with Halliburton, there was a clause in the contract that in the event she is injured on the job and wants to try and sue the company, she would be forced to submit to mandatory binding arbitration.
According to her complaint, she was gang-raped in the Green Zone by several of her fellow Halliburton employees. When she reported the incident to her employers, they conducted a rape test with a kit, but then seemingly tried to cover the incident up by locking her in a shipping container for more than 24 hours without food or water. They even posted armed guards around the container, and warned her that if she left Iraq to seek medical treatment, she would lose her job. She managed to get a cell phone from a sympathetic guard, and call her father. Her father contacted their member of Congress (Ted Poe - R), who immediately called the State Department and dispatched agents to free her.
After she was freed, both she and her Congressman tried to get the Pentagon or the DoJ to prosecute the people responsible, but nothing happened. No investigation was conducted of any sort, either. Because a criminal case appears to have no chance of going forward at this point (the incident in question occurred in 2007), she then tried to launch a civil suit against Halliburton. However, Halliburton's contract requires, as I mentioned before, that she would have to undergo mandatory binding arbitration. Even worse, Halliburton gets to pick the arbitration judge, the results can't be appealed, and any settlement has to be kept secret.
Obviously she did not want to go through with that, so she sued in federal court for the right to take Halliburton to a regular court of law, instead of an arbitrator. Just recently a Federal Appellate Court ruled that her incident does not fall within the terms of the contract since it was not on the job. So she will now be going back to court to actually sue Halliburton in a normal fashion.
That's sad, but the truly mind blowing part is coming up. The Senate approved a measure Tuesday by a vote of 68-30 prohibiting the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration. The measure is going to force companies to change policies that do not allow employees who attempt to sue for sexual harassment, assault or rape to have their day in court.
It's hard for me to believe that 30 senators voted against helping rape victims to have their day in court rather than go through binding arbirtration with the arbitrator named by their empoyer. Sadly, it's not shocking to me that both Sessions and Shelby voted against the amendment.
Is there another side to this that I'm not seeing? How could our senators possibly justify a vote supporting binding arbitration clauses for civil claims of "sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention?"
It's highly disturbing that a vote like this would skew so heavily among party lines.
