Two years ago, the Supreme Court made it more difficult for workers to band together and collectively sue their employer over unfair treatment and unpaid wages by allowing companies to enforce class-action waivers requiring arbitration behind closed doors. Now that companies have updated their policies, some observers say the effects of the court’s 5-4 ruling are starting to show.

On an annual basis, 2019 marked the first year in more than a decade that there were fewer federal class-action lawsuits alleging unpaid wages, job discrimination and mishandled retirement benefits, according to an annual review of workplace class-action cases from Seyfarth Shaw, an international law firm representing companies in employment litigation.

“ Attorney Gerald Maatman said this is the first time in the report’s 16-year history that he’s seen a year-over-year decline in all three categories of workplace class-action litigation. ”

Attorney Gerald Maatman said this is the first time in the report’s 16-year history that he’s seen a year-over-year decline in all three categories of workplace class-action litigation. He called it “a manifestation of the Epic Systemscase,” he said, referencing the 2018 Supreme Court decision that ruled companies can make workers waive their class-action rights in favor of arbitration.

Year-over-year, there were 233 fewer employment-discrimination cases filed in federal court, 714 fewer wage and hour cases, and 602 fewer cases brought under a statute setting standards on how employers administer health and retirement benefits. Overall, there was a 5.8% decline in all three categories of cases, which included lawsuits filed by plaintiffs’ attorneys and federal regulators.

There were almost 25,000 workplace class action lawsuits filed in 2019, down from more than 30,000 suits initiated in 2010, according to the Seyfarth Shaw report. Maatman, who has a vested interest in representing the views of companies, said arbitration is “quicker and less costly” than a court case for both the company and the employee. “Arbitrators call them as they see them,” he said.

However, advocates for worker rights argue that arbitration effectively forces employees into closed-door negotiations and, ultimately, doesn’t lead to broader corporate accountability, making it less likely a company will change its culture or policies. James Cooney, a professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said class-action lawsuits are nothing if not efficient.

“ Advocates for worker rights argue that arbitration effectively forces employees into closed-door negotiations and, ultimately, doesn’t lead to broader corporate accountability. ”

Class-action suits are obviously not going away, despite the fact that companies have more legal muscle to enforce arbitration. Maatman’s report noted courts formally certified 64% of employment discrimination cases and 65% of cases dealing with alleged mistakes in the administration of benefits. Formal court certification is a key hurdle when pressing a class-action case.

David Sanford, chairman of Sanford Heisler Sharp, a firm representing workers, said, “our firm is currently litigating over a dozen class-action matters” and the claims range from discrimination to unpaid wages. “If there have been fewer cases filed nationally in the recent past, we certainly have not been a part of that trend.”

The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, projects that in four years, almost 83% of private-sector workers will be subject to mandatory arbitration. It estimated 56% of workers had mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts. The EPI says mandatory arbitration does not give workers a fair hearing, or the resources of the American legal system — like a jury by one’s peers.

There has been some political push-back to mandatory arbitration. Last year, for instance, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, which would ban mandatory use of the proceeding to resolve consumer and worker complaints. But passage in the Republican-controlled Senate could be difficult, observers say.

In the #MeToo era, women’s rights organizations complained that these arbitration rules kept their sexual harassment allegations quiet. In late 2018, Google GOOG, -1.66% stopped using mandatory arbitration for sexual harassment allegations and then decided in early 2019 to stop using the method for worker disputes.

A Google spokeswoman said its employees now have a choice. “While arbitration can have a number of advantages over being in court in resolving disputes quickly and fairly, we have made arbitration optional for current and future employees for all workplace matters. We expect some employees will still choose arbitration for employee disputes,” she said.