[olliej]

No, they aren’t - arbitration is hugely biased in favor of the company, to the extent that the only way you can reasonably hope to win is by hiring a lawyer. But then to recover your money (a few grand maybe) you’re retaining a lawyer potentially for months, but because you’re not actually in court your chances of getting your legal fees.

This ignores that if you are a low wage employee subject to this kind of contract you are unlikely to be able to afford the initial retention costs.

My inclination would be to allow the arbiter to be selected by the employee. If companies really do believe arbitration is fair they should have no problem with that.