Arbitration is the result of a power imbalance between labor and employers, an attempt to subvert the ability to seek recourse in the justice system. It is wildly disingenuous to insinuate investment in legal firms is the motivator.
Uber and Chipotle are two examples of arbitration working as intend by employers.
It's not just employers. It's everything now. Just recently I went car shopping. The sale agreement requires arbitration. Cell phone contracts require it.
Come think of it, is there anything left that doesn't require arbitration?
About the only way out seems to be to have no business dealings with the company. If an airline drops a huge chunk of blue ice through my roof, and I haven't used that airline, then I guess I can still sue them. This isn't much comfort, because nearly every situation in which I might want to sue a company would involve doing business with the company and thus being subject to an arbitration agreement.
These aren't "working as intended" these are the companies being called out on their claim that it was about "efficiency".
In the both cases it's clear that they never intended to go into arbitration, and just assumed the amount of time required vs. the reward would not be worthwhile. The moment that the bluff was called they immediately tried to avoid the "efficient" option: Uber isn't paying the arbitration fees, chipotle tried to lawyer their way out of what They chose to force on their employees.
The Chipotle example is news because it is precisely not working as intended by the employer - it is preventing Chipotle from mounting a single deep pocketed defense for all of the cases together, and forcing Chipotle to address the claims one by one in small claims arbitration, which will may cost it more than just paying out.
Come think of it, is there anything left that doesn't require arbitration?
About the only way out seems to be to have no business dealings with the company. If an airline drops a huge chunk of blue ice through my roof, and I haven't used that airline, then I guess I can still sue them. This isn't much comfort, because nearly every situation in which I might want to sue a company would involve doing business with the company and thus being subject to an arbitration agreement.