Joanne Doroshow on Forced Arbitration Ruling, Julio López Varona on Puerto Rico’s Predators

This week on CounterSpin: A person whose employer is stealing their wages, or whose boss is harassing them, or whose phone company is overcharging them, might not have the time, wherewithal or money to fight back alone. That’s what class action lawsuits are for. But the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has just ruled that workers can be forced to instead pursue complaints through arbitration sessions, behind closed doors and all alone. We’ll talk about the ruling’s impact, and resistance, with Joanne Doroshow, founder and executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy.

Also on the show: New research finds that the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria was orders of magnitude greater than previously acknowledged: At least some 4,600 so-called “excess” deaths came in the months after the disaster, possibly twice that, compared to the Trump White House’s joke of a finding of 64. The research puts Puerto Rico’s struggles back in the news, but we’re right to question the nature of corporate media’s gaze: There are very different, competing visions of ways forward for Puerto Rico. We talked about that this past January with Julio López Varona, activist with the coalition Hedge Clippers and the founding organizer with Make the Road Connecticut.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a look at the Washington Post‘s commentary on Yemen.


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