The Supreme Court Upholds Mandatory Arbitration of Age Discrimination Claims in Union Contract.

In a decision issued today, 114 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, the United States Supreme Court ruled that “a collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate [Age Discrimination in Employment Act] ADEA claims is enforceable as a matter of law.” In doing so, the Court acknowledged that it had previously expressed hostility toward mandatory arbitration clauses in discrimination cases. However, it noted that such hostility was a relic of history. While further acknowledging that a Union’s ability, as opposed to an individual union member’s ability, to exclusively control the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement may place the individual union member at a disadvantage to assert his or her own rights, the Court found that such a concern did not create “a source of authority for introducing a qualification into the ADEA that is not found in the text.” Accordingly, it ruled that the union members in this particular case had waived their right to bring their ADEA claims in federal court.