What the f*&%!
98- kirstenblog
- 738 posts
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"In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration--a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue." There were 30 nay votes! How can anyone vote this sort of amendment down? Matter of a fact why should this amendment even need to be purposed in the first place?! My head hurts
83- Pr0metheus
- 958 posts
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kirstenblog wrote:
There were 30 nay votes!
All 30 nay votes came from republicans.
My grandpa (who's a conservative) has a saying.
"If you're young and you're not liberal, you have no heart. If you're old and not conservative, you have no brains."
92- Daniel Carter
- 1072 posts
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Apparently there are payoffs or there wouldn't be any nay votes. It is a complete travesty that this ever happened.
- 98
- kirstenblog
- 738 posts
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Pr0metheus wrote:
All 30 nay votes came from republicans.
My grandpa (who's a conservative) has a saying.
"If you're young and you're not liberal, you have no heart. If you're old and not conservative, you have no brains."HA! my brain hurts less now
91- prettydarkhorse
- 3156 posts
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kirstenblog wrote:
"In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration--a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue." There were 30 nay votes! How can anyone vote this sort of amendment down? Matter of a fact why should this amendment even need to be purposed in the first place?! My head hurts
thats politics for you, trying to protect the status quo...POLITICS is power....worst form of dictatorship....
100- Whitney05
- 2294 posts
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It's crazy she's not allowed to sue or prosecute. I understand not suing the company, but the people who did it should definitely get charges.
- C.J. Wright
- 697 posts
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kirstenblog wrote:
"In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration--a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue." There were 30 nay votes! How can anyone vote this sort of amendment down? Matter of a fact why should this amendment even need to be purposed in the first place?! My head hurts
Maybe they feel like its not the Government's place to dictate a business' policies. Now keep in mind, Government contract bidders are subject to review as to compliance with Sexual Harrasment, Violence in the work place, etc. Every time something bad happens to some one doesn't mean we need to make a new law. Rape is illegal. The fact that the US Justice department didn't do anything is where the issue is. They are using jusridiction as an excuse. We have held people, US citizens, in GTMO for crimes allegedly commited overseas. We arrest and convict people who take vacations to Tiawan/Philipines/etc for the purpose of sexually abusing minors. This is just another case of the government blaming "Big BAD Business". They could have gotten that woman justice. They didn't want to rock the boat!
88- Jonathan Janco
- 474 posts
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What can you expect from a company that profits from death and violence?
- C.J. Wright
- 697 posts
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Jonathan Janco wrote:
What can you expect from a company that profits from death and violence?
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.
- 88
- Jonathan Janco
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C.J. Wright wrote:
Jonathan Janco wrote:
What can you expect from a company that profits from death and violence?
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.
Agreed, but had the former VP not been CEO of Halliburton/KBR would this have so easily happened?
79- Madame X
- 1640 posts
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Jonathan Janco wrote:
C.J. Wright wrote:
Jonathan Janco wrote:
What can you expect from a company that profits from death and violence?
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.
Agreed, but had the former VP not been CEO of Halliburton/KBR would this have so easily happened?
Corporations are not democracies. If you sign away your rights just to join up with them, you're an idiot. Anyone can make any contract with anyone with any terms, and it is binding in contract law.
It's horrible what happened to her and a terrible crime. But she DID sign away her rights and her co-workers knew the "secret" rules. Sick.
Oh, and one more thing . . . Franken is a piece of s**t, no matter what he proposes.- C.J. Wright
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Jonathan Janco wrote:
C.J. Wright wrote:
Jonathan Janco wrote:
What can you expect from a company that profits from death and violence?
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.
Agreed, but had the former VP not been CEO of Halliburton/KBR would this have so easily happened?
Yes, Big Business is impersonal. It does not tend to get involved too deeply at the grass roots level. Just sets vague, broad policies. One of its policies is compulsary arbitration as a condition of employment. These types of situations occur all the time. Haliburton, bought, then sold KBR BTW. My point is this happened at a forward Army Base/Camp Hope. The U.S. Justice department was more than capable of delivering justice. Thats the key. Money won't undo the damage. If the VP had anything to do with this, I would suspect it was the turning over of the rape kit to Haliburton/KBR. Why would the Army have done this? Did they check with their legal department prior? The Kit belongs to the victim, not the company. Who knows...we don't know the answer to that.
- C.J. Wright
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Madame X wrote:
Jonathan Janco wrote:
C.J. Wright wrote:
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.Agreed, but had the former VP not been CEO of Halliburton/KBR would this have so easily happened?
Corporations are not democracies. If you sign away your rights just to join up with them, you're an idiot. Anyone can make any contract with anyone with any terms, and it is binding in contract law.
It's horrible what happened to her and a terrible crime. But she DID sign away her rights and her co-workers knew the "secret" rules. Sick.
Oh, and one more thing . . . Franken is a piece of s**t, no matter what he proposes.Agreed on Franken. He is not stupid. He is taking advantage of this woman's situation to make himself look good with out "rocking the boat" as I mentioned earlier.
86- A Texan
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Madame X wrote:
Jonathan Janco wrote:
C.J. Wright wrote:
True. However, the opportunity was created by Congress and the President.Agreed, but had the former VP not been CEO of Halliburton/KBR would this have so easily happened?
Corporations are not democracies. If you sign away your rights just to join up with them, you're an idiot. Anyone can make any contract with anyone with any terms, and it is binding in contract law.
It's horrible what happened to her and a terrible crime. But she DID sign away her rights and her co-workers knew the "secret" rules. Sick.
Oh, and one more thing . . . Franken is a piece of s**t, no matter what he proposes."Franken is a piece of s**t, no matter what he proposes."
Thats just funny! And true.
95- livelonger
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Sick. You do realize that the Franken amendment doesn't make such arbitration clauses illegal; it just says such organizations who engage in such clearly unethical practices should not get federal contracts.
If the Right these days weren't hyperventilating about ACORN, "death panels" or Obama's birth certificate, they would probably feel the same as the 3 female GOP senators who sided with Franken and all the Democrats on this one.- C.J. Wright
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livelonger wrote:
Sick. You do realize that the Franken amendment doesn't make such arbitration clauses illegal; it just says such organizations who engage in such clearly unethical practices should not get federal contracts.
If the Right these days weren't hyperventilating about ACORN, "death panels" or Obama's birth certificate, they would probably feel the same as the 3 female GOP senators who sided with Franken and all the Democrats on this one.Yep, thats the truth of it. But do we really want the government disovling contracts post mortem. Especially if there was nothing illegal about the contract at the time? I mean what about all of the people clammering for tort reform? Franken's legislation is a classic case of mistaking movement for action.
- 95
- livelonger
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C.J. Wright wrote:
livelonger wrote:
Sick. You do realize that the Franken amendment doesn't make such arbitration clauses illegal; it just says such organizations who engage in such clearly unethical practices should not get federal contracts.
If the Right these days weren't hyperventilating about ACORN, "death panels" or Obama's birth certificate, they would probably feel the same as the 3 female GOP senators who sided with Franken and all the Democrats on this one.Yep, thats the truth of it. But do we really want the government disovling contracts post mortem. Especially if there was nothing illegal about the contract at the time? I mean what about all of the people clammering for tort reform? Franken's legislation is a classic case of mistaking movement for action.
Sorry, there are 4 female GOP senators, and all supported the amendment:
--Olympia Snowe (Maine)
--Susan Collins (Maine)
--Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
--Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas)
To their credit, 6 male GOP senators also voted for the amendment.
I'm not sure why you think this should have been couched with tort reform. This had to do with the military appropriations bill; seemed like a good time to insert this amendment, unless, of course, you think shutting up rape victims is something government money should support. Madame X wrote:
Corporations are not democracies. If you sign away your rights just to join up with them, you're an idiot. Anyone can make any contract with anyone with any terms, and it is binding in contract law.
There are actually a bunch of scenarios where a contract is voidable. One of those is when the terms of a contract are unconscionable. I can't say what the current case law says about what terms are unconscionable, but there certainly seems to be some lively debate out there on the topic of binding arbitration and unconscionability.
- C.J. Wright
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livelonger wrote:
C.J. Wright wrote:
livelonger wrote:
Sick. You do realize that the Franken amendment doesn't make such arbitration clauses illegal; it just says such organizations who engage in such clearly unethical practices should not get federal contracts.
If the Right these days weren't hyperventilating about ACORN, "death panels" or Obama's birth certificate, they would probably feel the same as the 3 female GOP senators who sided with Franken and all the Democrats on this one.Yep, thats the truth of it. But do we really want the government disovling contracts post mortem. Especially if there was nothing illegal about the contract at the time? I mean what about all of the people clammering for tort reform? Franken's legislation is a classic case of mistaking movement for action.
Sorry, there are 4 female GOP senators, and all supported the amendment:
--Olympia Snowe (Maine)
--Susan Collins (Maine)
--Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
--Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas)
To their credit, 6 male GOP senators also voted for the amendment.
I'm not sure why you think this should have been couched with tort reform. This had to do with the military appropriations bill; seemed like a good time to insert this amendment, unless, of course, you think shutting up rape victims is something government money should support.My point is Franken is addressing the wrong issue. I don't care how many R's or D's voted for the measure. There has been a miscariage of justice here. This woman should have had a chance to see these creeps in court. How will this piece of legislation stop another incident? I have been in DOD Contracting for years. A lot of the contracts that were done post 9/11 were fast tracked. In other words not all of the Background investigations and manditory training were done. Thats the problem. An arbitration agreement that a company signs with its employee has NOTHING to do with preventing or covering up a rape. I believe Franken is simply using this as a way to reach out to the former VP. A poke in the eye, so to speak. Besides I don't want government telling business how to do business. What they did is not illegal. Its no secret that Chainey is probably more hated than Bush. Hell, I never cared for the guy. We don't have time for that kind of crap!
- 79
- Madame X
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Ernie wrote:
Madame X wrote:
Corporations are not democracies. If you sign away your rights just to join up with them, you're an idiot. Anyone can make any contract with anyone with any terms, and it is binding in contract law.
There are actually a bunch of scenarios where a contract is voidable. One of those is when the terms of a contract are unconscionable. I can't say what the current case law says about what terms are unconscionable, but there certainly seems to be some lively debate out there on the topic of binding arbitration and unconscionability.
Unconscionability will void a contract but that's not the case here. She understood that she could only go to arbitration when she signed up. But since it's crime and not just civil, it seems like she should be able to prosecute. I'm not an attorney so I don't really know.
