Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Let's Not Settle for Settlements

I recently received a check from American Express for a class action lawsuit of which I was unaware.  A few weeks ago, I received a large check from a class action lawsuit against LA Fitness.  I have on my desk, a form to fill out for Anthem (Health Insurance) fee settlement.  While I'm happy to receive all these checks, I feel it speaks to a larger issue. Namely, what are all these corporations doing that requires so many class action suits to get them to stop?  (We hope!)

In two of the three cases, my check was for illegal fees.  In the third case, the one against LA Fitness (my employer), it's because they refused to pay any overtime for instructors.

Despite the clear violation of our laws, the corporations push the limits to see how far they can go and what they can get away with.  In these three cases, they were caught, but how many more times do they get away with it, or worse, as in the case of Wall Street's "too big to fail" buyout of 2008, are caught, but completely unpunished?

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