Supreme Court decision may limit ag workers’ ability to fight for unfairly withheld wages

Employers can force workers to settle disputes outside of court, the U.S. Supreme Court said this week, which could negatively affect agricultural workers and employees who earn low wages. That’s because ag-sector workers, like farmhands and meatpacking-plant employees, often have to turn to class-action lawsuits to collect unfairly withheld or stolen wages.Monday’s 5-4 decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis originated from three similar lawsuits in which workers challegened their employers’ right to contractually obligate them to individually settle disputes with the help of an arbitrator.Justice Neil Gorsuch said in the opinion that mandatory arbitration agreements do not violate the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees employees the right to collective bargaining.   But in her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued the decision was “egregiously wrong” and would result in “the underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of vulnerable workers.”Ginsburg might consider migrant farmworkers, people who are employed at meatpacking plants and, in some cases, H-2A visa workers, among the “vulnerable,” said University of Denver law professor Nantiya Ruan. Due to the cost of litigation and the relatively small damages associated with these cases, class-action lawsuits are ag-sector workers’ most feasible means for legal action, she said.