Remember we said recently (see 7/31/06) that your chances of making a mandatory arbitration policy stick were better than ever? They are. Yet another court decision, this time in an Oklahoma case, is bearing out what we told you. In this new case, an employer put in a policy requiring employees to submit all employment-law disputes to arbitration rather than suing in the courts. The policy was voluntary for three months after its introduction, and then became mandatory. One employee swore up and down that she'd never submit to the policy. Her supervisor told her she'd have to. The employee decided not to quit over the issue. Later, when she tried to sue for sex discrimination, a federal appeals court said she couldn't. By staying in her job past the three-month deadline, she'd accepted the arbitration policy as an implied contract, the court said.
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