Yes. The union contract can force the employees to use arbitration. The law allows unions to make deals about all 'conditions of employment,' and that includes how disagreements are settled. The age discrimination law doesn't forbid using arbitration. Agreeing to arbitrate doesn't mean you give up your right to be protected from discrimination; it just changes where you argue your case—in front of a private referee instead of a judge and jury. An older Supreme Court case that seemed to say the opposite was different because that union contract didn't specifically mention handling these types of legal claims.

No. The employees should be able to go to court. For 35 years, the Supreme Court has said that the right to sue for discrimination is a personal right that a union can't trade away for the whole group. The main point of that old case was that a union might not fight as hard for one person's discrimination claim because it has to look out for all its members. The Court should stick to that rule. The majority is ignoring a long-standing precedent.

No. The Court is ignoring its own past decisions just because it now has a stronger preference for arbitration. The laws haven't changed, so the Court's interpretation shouldn't either. If the rules are going to be changed, Congress should be the one to do it, not the Supreme Court.

Yes, the contract's rule about arbitration is okay to use. The union and the building owners agreed that problems like age discrimination would be solved by arbitration, and this kind of agreement is allowed when making work contracts. The law about age discrimination doesn't say you can't use arbitration, so the contract must be followed. But the contract must be very clear about this, and it can't take away the workers' legal rights to be free from age discrimination.

The Court's decision goes against what it decided before in a case called Gardner-Denver. In that case, the Court said a union contract can't make workers give up their right to go to court for discrimination complaints. The laws about age discrimination and other kinds of discrimination at work are very similar. The Court is only reaching a different decision now because it's putting its preference for arbitration above what the law says. Congress should be the one to change the law if it disagrees with the Court's earlier decision.

The question is whether a union contract that says all complaints, even ones about age discrimination, have to be solved by arbitration takes away a worker's right to take an age discrimination complaint to court. The Court decided 35 years ago in the Gardner-Denver case that it does not, and we should stick with that ruling. The age discrimination law is meant to get rid of discrimination at work, and it gives workers the right to go to court for help. In Gardner-Denver, the Court said the rights given by the law against discrimination at work can't be given up as part of union agreements. The majority is ignoring this important ruling.

We hoh; l that a collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate ADEA claims is enforceable as a matter of federal law

—"[t] his Court has required only that an agreement to arbitrate statutory antidiscrimination claims be `explicitly stated'in the collective-bargaining agreement. "

The Court held that an agreement to bring future claims in arbitration was not a waiver of "rights or claims": "The decision to resolve ADEA claims by way of arbitration instead of litigation does not waive the statutory right to be free from workplace age discrimination; it waives only the right to seek relief from a court in the first instance."

In so concluding, Fourth Circuit cited to Supreme Court precedent which indicates that, while an arbitration agreement is valid where it delegates federal statutory rights to an arbitrator, it has cautioned that the freedom "does not extend to a `substantive waiver of federally protected civil rights' in an arbitration agreement. "

The Supreme Court has held that a union can, on behalf of its members, "agree to the inclusion of an arbitration provision in a collective-bargaining agreement,"

As the trial court correctly recognized, because the arbitration provision was part of a CBA, not an individual contractual agreement, the burden lay with Paragon to establish that Ms. Williams' obligation to arbitrate under the CBA was "particularly clear," and correspondingly that her waiver of her right to litigate a statutory claim was "clear and unmistakable."

The National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA"), 29 USC § 151 et. seq., as construed by the courts, imposes a duty of fair representation on labor unions "which a union breaches when its conduct toward a member of the bargaining unit is arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith."

—the Supreme Court observed that "[n] othing in the law suggests a distinction between the status of arbitration agreements signed by an individual employee and those agreed to by a union representative."

—finding a waiver of federal judicial forum where CBA stated that all claims of discrimination, including those made pursuant to Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, and any other similar laws "shall be subject to the grievance and arbitration procedures... as the sole and exclusive remedy for violations

Yes. A collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate ADEA claims is enforceable. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) grants unions broad authority to bargain over 'conditions of employment,' which includes agreements for dispute resolution like arbitration. The Court's decision in *Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp.* established that the ADEA does not preclude arbitration of claims. An agreement to arbitrate a statutory claim is a waiver of a procedural right to a judicial forum, not a waiver of the substantive right to be free from discrimination. The Court distinguished its prior holding in *Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co.*, explaining that the CBA in that case did not expressly cover statutory claims, meaning the arbitration of a *contractual* claim did not preclude a subsequent lawsuit on a *statutory* claim. The CBA here, by contrast, explicitly covers statutory ADEA claims. The dicta in *Gardner-Denver* expressing hostility toward arbitration has been superseded by decades of jurisprudence favoring it. Any potential conflict of interest between the union and an individual employee is addressed by the union's duty of fair representation under the NLRA, which provides a separate remedy for employees.

No. A union cannot waive an employee's right to a judicial forum for statutory discrimination claims through a collective bargaining agreement. Under the 35-year-old precedent of *Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co.*, an individual's right to equal employment opportunity, including the right to a judicial forum, cannot be waived by a union as part of the collective bargaining process. The majority misreads *Gardner-Denver* as resting on narrow contractual grounds; its core holding was based on the unique, individual nature of statutory antidiscrimination rights and the inherent conflict of interest that arises when a union controls an individual's claim. The majority's decision ignores the principle of *stare decisis*, as Congress has been aware of the *Gardner-Denver* rule for decades and has chosen not to amend the statute, indicating legislative acceptance of that interpretation.

No. The Court's decision subverts established precedent in favor of a judicial policy preference for arbitration. The relevant statutes have not been amended since the Court's decision in *Gardner-Denver*, which correctly held that Congress did not intend for a union to be able to waive an employee's right to a judicial forum for Title VII claims, a logic that applies equally to the ADEA. The Court is engaging in judicial policymaking by reinterpreting statutes to reach a different result based on a changed view of arbitration's merits. Any reassessment of the balance between arbitration and judicial remedies for statutory rights should be undertaken by Congress, not the Court.

Yes, the CBA's arbitration provision is enforceable under federal law. The Union and the RAB collectively bargained in good faith and agreed that employment-related discrimination claims, including ADEA claims, would be resolved in arbitration. This agreement qualifies as a condition of employment subject to mandatory bargaining under the NLRA. The ADEA does not preclude arbitration of claims brought under the statute. Therefore, the CBA's arbitration clause must be honored unless the ADEA itself removes this class of grievances from the NLRA's broad sweep, which it does not. I emphasize that an agreement to arbitrate is not a waiver of the substantive rights afforded by the ADEA, but merely a waiver of the right to seek relief from a court in the first instance. The burden is on the party asserting the enforceability of the arbitration provision to establish that the obligation to arbitrate under the CBA is 'particularly clear,' ensuring that the waiver of the right to litigate a statutory claim is 'clear and unmistakable.'

The Court's preference for arbitration has led it to disregard our precedent in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., which held that a collective-bargaining agreement could not waive covered workers' rights to a judicial forum for causes of action created by Congress. The purposes and relevant provisions of Title VII and the ADEA are not meaningfully distinguishable. It is only by reexamining the statutory questions resolved in Gardner-Denver through the lens of the policy favoring arbitration that the majority now reaches a different result. Congress, rather than this Court, should reassess the policy arguments favoring arbitration and revise the relevant provisions to reflect its views.

The issue is whether employees subject to a CBA providing for conclusive arbitration of all grievances, including claimed breaches of the ADEA, lose their statutory right to bring an ADEA claim in court. Under the 35-year-old holding in Gardner-Denver, they do not, and I would adhere to stare decisis and so hold today. The ADEA is aimed at the elimination of workplace discrimination, and it grants an injured employee a right of action to obtain the authorized relief. Gardner-Denver considered the effect of a CBA's arbitration clause on an employee's right to sue under Title VII, and we unanimously held that the rights conferred by Title VII cannot be waived as part of the collective bargaining process. The majority evades the precedent of Gardner-Denver by ignoring it at first, and then misreading it as resting on nothing more than a contractual failure to reach as far as statutory claims. In fact, Gardner-Denver held that the rights conferred by Title VII cannot be waived as part of the collective bargaining process because it concerns not majoritarian processes, but an individual's right to equal employment opportunities.

14 Penn Plaza LLC et al. v. Pyett et al.

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