Algorithmic control and manipulation of working people is a dire threat to our marketplace that threatens to further entrench economic inequality and undermine our core economic freedoms. Over the past several weeks, Towards Justice has been at the forefront of the effort to fight back.

We are excited to share our latest video in our “Explained” series, which describes some of these problems, with a focus on the ways algorithms are used to set individualized prices and wages designed to pay workers as little as possible and charge consumers as much as possible and as a tool of collusion and unfair competition. Watch the full video here:

Earlier this month, More Perfect Union released a video showing how rideshare companies Uber and Lyft have set prices for riders and wages for drivers to maximize their profits and control over drivers and riders. The video features discussion of Towards Justice’s litigation and advocacy alongside drivers fighting back against a business model of control without responsibility or accountability. You can watch the video here.

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• CFPB Panel: Our Executive Director David Seligman joined a field hearing in Michigan with Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra to talk about the increased prevalence of algorithmic monitoring systems to control workers. As the U.S. Department of Labor and CFPB have demonstrated, it’s essential that we use all of our laws to attack these systems, including consumer protection laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act. You can watch a recording of the panel here.

• Fighting Back Against Weaponized Arbitration: Towards Justice and its clients are once again fighting back against forced arbitration in predatory stay-or-pay contracts that keep workers trapped in jobs and use the legal system against them. We sent a letter to the American Arbitration Association, the biggest provider of arbitration services in the country, expressing grave concerns with the practice of corporate employers weaponizing AAA arbitration to enforce “stay-or-pay” contracts. AAA collects thousands in fees from cases brought against foreign workers who have done nothing except leave a job where they may have been subjected to horrible treatment and outrageously low pay. The full letter is available here. This advocacy was also highlighted in a recent story in the HuffingtonPost, where Towards Justice attorney Rachel Dempsey explained how coercive contracts prey on vulnerable workers who aren’t familiar with our legal system.
• JBS: Earlier this month, we filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that JBS is forcing hundreds of workers from Haiti at its Greeley meatpacking facility to work at dangerous speeds and limiting their access to the bathroom. Our client, like other Haitian workers currently employed at JBS, is responsible for removing fat from beef as it moves along a JBS production line, hooking the meat with one hand and slicing the meat with a knife held in the other. He alleges that he is forced to work at such extreme speeds that he can’t even release his hand from his hook for a moment during his shift. You can read more about our advocacy alongside FarmStand and King Employment Law in a Denver Post story about this case here.

• National Consumer Law Center: “What The Heck, Dude!”: How States Can Fight Rental Housing Junk Fees
• More Perfect Union: We Put 7 Uber Drivers in One Room. What We Found Will Shock You.
• HuffPost: Foreign-Born Nurses Who Quit Their U.S. Jobs Face A Legal Nightmare