Pre-dispute arbitration agreements, or forced arbitration agreements, are part of nearly every product, service, employment, or activity that an American takes part in. Every store you walk into, every product you buy, every service you contract, every job that you hold comes with fine print that forces you into arbitration in the event that an issue arises, removing your Constitutional right to a trial by jury covered under the 7th Amendment.

These arbitration agreements often include the business' choice of a for-profit arbitration company to use. These arbitration services typically have agreements with the businesses to ensure they get repeat business, creating a default conflict of interest in favor of the business. The arbitrator does not have to follow the rule of law, and will follow their own defined rules. This serves only to further protect the business from liability and accountability. Businesses will defend this practice by saying that it's cheaper and faster to go through arbitration. As someone who is going through it, I can assure you that it's not. It's taken almost two years, and I'm still no further along, and the cost far exceeds what a court case would cost me.

The "cheaper" aspect comes from the fact that they win most of the time and recover far more money than consumers. Here is testimony that Deepak Gupta, formally Senior Counsel for Litigation and Enforcement Strategy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, gave to Congress during a hearing on forced arbitration in 2019:

"Anecdotes suggest that defense lawyers recognize the
suppressive effect of arbitration clauses. As a recent news story
reported, ``[Lawyers believe] they may have found, in the words of one law firm, the `silver bullet' for killing off legal challenges. In an industry podcast, two lawyers discussed the benefits of using arbitration to quash consumers' lawsuits. The tactic, they said, is emerging at an opportune time, given that debt collectors are being sued for violating federal law. The beauty of the clauses, the lawyers said, is that often the lawsuit `simply goes away.' '' Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Michael Corkery, Sued Over Old Debt, and Blocked From Suing Back, N.Y. Times, Dec. 22, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/dealbook/sued-over-old-debt-and-blocked-from-suing-back.html"

"Moreover, arbitration seems to favor businesses over
consumers not just relative to litigation, but in an absolute
sense. The CFPB found that, within arbitration, companies are
far more successful than consumers. According to the Bureau's
report, businesses won relief in 93% of the business-initiated
cases in which arbitrators reached a decision on the merits. In
the disputes that businesses won, they received ninety-eight
cents for every dollar they had claimed; taking into account
the disputes where they lost, they recovered ninety-one cents
for every dollar claimed. In disputes initiated by consumers,
by contrast, arbitrators provided relief to consumers in 27% of
cases and awarded them an average of forty-seven cents for
every dollar claimed. Among consumer-initiated disputes as a
whole, consumers won an average of thirteen cents for every
dollar they had claimed."

Just by participating in society, you have affectively signed away one of your defining Constitutional rights. This right was so important to the founding fathers that it was built into the Bill of Rights. Up there with the right to free speech, and the most defended right, the right to bear arms.

The courts have allowed this to go on, and only Congress can stop it. In a survey conducted in 2019, 84% of all voters said they support legislation to end this practice, and yet Congress has failed to act. For the past two years, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act has passed the House, but it has always stalled in the Senate because businesses don't want this law passed. 

It is time to tell Congress to act NOW. Sign this petition and call/email your Congress members to tell them that you want this bill passed NOW. It is time for our representatives to actually represent us, and follow the will of the people, rather than the will of the money. Let's fight to restore our 7th Amendment rights with as much passion as we defend our 2nd Amendment.

I encourage to all to read through the full hearing found here. It's quite frustrating to read the testimony and know that it was all ignored for business interests. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg44090/html/CHRG-116hhrg44090.htm