Senate Considers Class Action Bill That Affects Workers' Rights
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 2/8/2005
The Senate this week began debating the Class Action Fairness Act, which aims to shift more class action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts, including class action suits involving civil rights and wage-and-hour cases that are filed in state courts under state law by mostly in-state plaintiffs.Civil rights and labor rights advocates expressed their support for an amendment that would exempt civil rights and wage-and-hour state law cases from the bill, thereby preventing those cases from being moved to federal courts. The amendment is expected to be offered by Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
"The Senate should not throw out the baby of worker and minority rights with the bathwater of curtailing class-action lawsuits," said Nancy Zirkin, deputy director for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). "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."
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.
Groups in favor of exempting civil rights and wage-and-hour cases from the Act, including LCCR, maintain no case has been made by Congress to show that abuses exist in anti-discrimination and wage and hour class-action litigation.
Supporters of the amendment also say that under federal law, federal judges must narrowly construe state statutes, so that when federal courts are interpreting emerging areas of state civil rights law, they will be less likely to grant relief.
"The Senate should demonstrate that it is not anti-worker and not 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 state's rights would so cavalierly turn on their own states and constituents to support a bill that will eviscerate state employment and civil rights laws."
