Voluntary Mediation Benefits Consumers
2/25/2009
Source: Cora Ganzglass, Legislative Director, NACA as posted on DeMoinesRegister.com

The Feb. 12 article, "Mediation Gains Ground in Iowa," failed to distinguish between voluntary mediation, the kind that was successful for Marie Burgy of Amana, who had an improperly installed gutter, and pre-dispute mandatory arbitration, which corporations use to stack the deck against consumers and employees.

Unlike mediation, binding mandatory arbitration requires individuals to use company courts as a condition of receiving goods or services or getting or keeping a job. It is an unfair system because the arbitrator is constantly looking for the repeat business of the company.

A report analyzed more than 19,000 credit-card arbitration cases in California and found arbitrators ruled in favor of the corporation almost 95 percent of the time.

Consumers favor voluntary arbitration and being given the choice to arbitrate. Would an employee who was fired because she complained about sexual harassment want her employer deciding how her claim should be handled? Would a family whose loved one was killed by unattended bed sores want that nursing home deciding whether it was negligent?

Consumer-rights and civil-rights advocates want Iowans to have a real choice in where their claim is heard.