Senate Approves Class Action Bill at Expense of Workers' Rights
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 2/15/2005
The Senate last week approved the Class Action Fairness Act (72 to 26). Prior to voting on the bill, the Senate also voted against an amendment (40 to 59) that would have exempted civil rights suits and state law wage-and-hour cases from the bill, thereby preventing those cases from being moved to federal courts.The class action bill shifts more class action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts, including class action suits involving civil rights claims and wage-and-hour cases that are filed in state courts under state law.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) had expressed its "extreme disappointment" of the vote against the amendment, saying it was "a dark day for the rights of workers and ordinary Americans."
A coalition of more than 80 consumer, senior, environmental, labor and civil rights organizations had supported the amendment, which was offered by Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
"The United States Senate has thrown out the baby of worker and minority rights with the bathwater of curtailing class-action lawsuits," said Nancy Zirkin, LCCR deputy director. "There is absolutely no evidence that lawsuits brought by workers seeking justice in state courts on issues ranging from overtime pay to working off the clock are abusing the system. To the contrary, failure to exempt such lawsuits in this legislation is an abusive act against every hard-working American seeking fair pay and a better life."
Groups who were in favor of exempting civil rights and wage-and-hour lawsuits from the Act, including LCCR, maintain that no case had been made by Congress to show that abuses exist in anti-discrimination and wage and hour class-action litigation.
Supporters of the amendment also said that because federal judges must narrowly construe state statutes, federal courts are interpreting emerging areas of state civil rights law will be less likely to grant relief.
"The Senate has sent a signal that it is anti-worker and anti-state," Zirkin said. "The fact is that many state labor laws provide greater protections for workers such as broader overtime rights and benefits for part-time workers."
Noting that many states' rights supporters also support the class action bill, Zirkin said, "I am truly shocked that so many Senators who are avowed advocates of states' rights would so cavalierly turn on their own states and constituents to support a bill that will eviscerate state employment and civil rights laws."
An identical class action bill was poised for passage last year until Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., pulled the legislation after he could not muster up enough votes to invoke cloture - or shut down debate - on amendments not related to the substance of the bill.
