Summary: The number of discrimination lawsuits filed in federal courts has increased dramatically in recent years. Employers have become more and more concerned about the costs involved in resolving these complaints--in time, money, and good employees relationships. Some employers have turned to internal alternative dispute resolution approaches, including arbitration, which requires submitting disputes to a neutral third person for resolution. Some require their employees to agree to mandatory, binding arbitration of discrimination complaints as a condition of their employment, forcing employees to waive the right to sue. GAO estimates, on the basis of a survey of 2,000 businesses, that almost all employers with 100 or more employees use one of more alternative dispute resolution approaches. Arbitration is one of the least common approaches reported. Some employers using arbitration make it mandatory for all workers. Employer policies on arbitrating discrimination complaints vary considerably. However, some of these policies, such as those for employees obtaining information and empowering the arbitrator to use remedies equal to those under law, would not meet standards of fairness proposed recently a Commission established by the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Commerce.
