Good afternoon, Chairman Carr, Subcommittee Members, and Chairman Bulova. Thank you for your public service and leadership.
I am writing to endorse HB 1371, the "Local Procurement Transparency Act." For returning Subcommittee members, Delegate Simon’s may look familiar. In 2021, this Subcommittee and the full General Laws Committee approved the same language, as SB 1384, which was then patroned by Senator Surovell. We were one vote short of ultimate enactment, ending with a 4-4 vote in the Civil Subcommittee of Courts of Justice.
Delegate Simon’s legislative efforts are supported by a diverse group of organizations including the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Virginia National Organization for Women, Virginia Employment Lawyers Association, Public Justice, and the National Employment Law Project.
HB 1371 will allow participating localities to ask bidders or offerors if they use forced arbitration in employment and civil rights disputes and certain online payment systems. Forced arbitration is when companies require employees or customers to submit to secretive, pre-dispute arbitration as a condition of using a product or keeping a job—before a dispute arises. Companies using forced arbitration might appear to be good candidates for a contract on paper but may be rife with unknown problems—like sexual harassment, discrimination, labor abuses, and service failures—that would undermine their contract performance. As more and more companies adopt forced arbitration clauses that require disputes to be resolved by a secret tribunal, public bodies in Virginia receive less and less information about potential contractors.
HB 1371 will provide transparency for making the best contracting decisions using taxpayer dollars. Not only are sexual harassment, discrimination, wage theft, and other illegal practices contrary to state values and harmful to Virginians but there also is a wealth of evidence that businesses that violate the law also provide substandard work—often at a higher cost. According to NELP’s 2020 ground-breaking study, forced arbitration has enabled Virginia employers to steal $296 million in wages from workers in low-wage jobs.
Finally, I want to emphasize that HB 1371 is (1) optional and (2) does not ban forced arbitration. This bill provides transparency in contracting and falls fully within the market participant exception to any federal preemption of state law by the Federal Arbitration Act.
Thank you for your consideration.
Good afternoon, Chairman Carr, Subcommittee Members, and Chairman Bulova. Thank you for your public service and leadership. I am writing to endorse HB 1371, the "Local Procurement Transparency Act." For returning Subcommittee members, Delegate Simon’s may look familiar. In 2021, this Subcommittee and the full General Laws Committee approved the same language, as SB 1384, which was then patroned by Senator Surovell. We were one vote short of ultimate enactment, ending with a 4-4 vote in the Civil Subcommittee of Courts of Justice. Delegate Simon’s legislative efforts are supported by a diverse group of organizations including the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Virginia National Organization for Women, Virginia Employment Lawyers Association, Public Justice, and the National Employment Law Project. HB 1371 will allow participating localities to ask bidders or offerors if they use forced arbitration in employment and civil rights disputes and certain online payment systems. Forced arbitration is when companies require employees or customers to submit to secretive, pre-dispute arbitration as a condition of using a product or keeping a job—before a dispute arises. Companies using forced arbitration might appear to be good candidates for a contract on paper but may be rife with unknown problems—like sexual harassment, discrimination, labor abuses, and service failures—that would undermine their contract performance. As more and more companies adopt forced arbitration clauses that require disputes to be resolved by a secret tribunal, public bodies in Virginia receive less and less information about potential contractors. HB 1371 will provide transparency for making the best contracting decisions using taxpayer dollars. Not only are sexual harassment, discrimination, wage theft, and other illegal practices contrary to state values and harmful to Virginians but there also is a wealth of evidence that businesses that violate the law also provide substandard work—often at a higher cost. According to NELP’s 2020 ground-breaking study, forced arbitration has enabled Virginia employers to steal $296 million in wages from workers in low-wage jobs. Finally, I want to emphasize that HB 1371 is (1) optional and (2) does not ban forced arbitration. This bill provides transparency in contracting and falls fully within the market participant exception to any federal preemption of state law by the Federal Arbitration Act. Thank you for your consideration.