Thousands of Chipotle Workers Could be Shut Out of Wage-Theft Lawsuit by Supreme Court Ruling

A recent Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of some workers to join class action lawsuits against their employers is already having a real-world impact. Chipotle is attempting to keep thousands of current and former workers out of a class-action wage theft case against it, and the new ruling is likely to give the company an edge.

The original suit, according to Huffington Post labor reporter Dave Jamieson, involves around 10,000 workers who claim that Chipotle forced them to work without pay before or after clocking in. Chipotle, though, says that nearly 3,000 of those workers signed class-action waivers as conditions of their employment, which would prevent them from joining the suit.

The Chipotle case was first filed in 2014, but a Supreme Court decision issued last Monday fundamentally shifts the playing field. Ruling on Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis—also an underpayment case—the Supreme Court upheld companies’ right to make so-called ‘forced arbitration’ a condition of employment, meaning employees would have to pursue redress for mistreatment individually, even when violations are systematic or widespread. In addition to complaints about pay, the ruling will likely also impact sexual harassment cases.

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On the other hand what about the bottom line of Chipotle? It's in their best interest to get their employees to work for free as much as possible.

That's just so backwards.

After hearing this and the NFL, I'm disappointed.

Still, do not see a problem.

Also, the Supreme court case is about arbitration. So again unless anyone besides the 2800 has signed arbitration clauses, this case has no bearing on them. Meaning the 7200 workers who have joined still have an option to enter into a class-action

Not to mention that it´s a free world, So no one forced them to sign these agreements.

Also, it´s worth noting that the supreme court ruled on the legality of making agreements with forced 1v1 arbitration and that these 2800 have only signed an agreement to arbitration, so let´s wait and see what the court rules before jumping the gun.

Why would anyone continue to work off the clock at a job where you make $8/hour?

If a manager told me to clock out and continue working, and even after I said no he locked the door and wouldn’t let me out, I would call the police after I got done beating him into a coma.

There young workers who dont know better and easily taken adventage of,and dont want to loose there job

Yes and it's disgusting that the SC is not for people's rights anymore either.

It is, one of the few reasons I do like my country, not only do we have a government body called fair work who will give you legal advice and invesigate companies if they dont follow the law or awards. If your under 25 they give you a free lawyer even tho they arnt fully quilified they take about the case in uni which means you can have over 20 almost lawyers and a teacher with 10+ years experience working on your case. The only time people dont report is if you're casual, because companies will fire most of there staff if the get invesigated.

1) Yes, the 7200 can proceed with their class action lawsuit because they were hired before the arbitration agreement in question was implemented. The 2800 hired after and anyone else hired from that point on would not have that ability. Those hired after the arbitration agreement was implemented is the point - this is the very first post decision impact of the ruling.

2) These arbitration agreements have been rising in prevalence in recent years because of disproportionate bargaining power between workers/employees, and this ruling projected to make their prevalence rise further still. For most employees, it will boil down to signing these agreements or not working. Some choice.

3) The 2800 workers in question signed an arbitration agreement explicitly includes a class action waiver. Please read the articles, as this information is stated in the 4th sentence of the first article and the 1st sentence of the second.

This is a pretty good reason to just not eat at Chipotle.

Chipotle sucks

I reckon the E. coli outbreaks were reason enough.