Interview with Susan Fowler, who exposed Uber's toxic workplace culture, on her new mission: ending forced arbitration for all workers, starting in California
companies like Uber — to cover up illegal behavior.” http://www.recode.net/... Susan Fowler / @susanthesquark : I'm not going to stop until forced arbitration is no longer allowed Johana Bhuiyan / @jmbooyah : Susan Fowler's next act: End all forced arbitration. Fowler is helping to introduce a new bill in California today that seeks to make arbitration voluntary and not a mandatory condition of employment https://www.recode.net/... pic.twitter.com/SqazKUQsXn Susan Fowler / @susanthesquark : I'm so excited to be joining @LorenaAD80, @CaliforniaLabor, and @EconomicPolicy tomorrow to announce California legislation regarding forced arbitration. #AB3080 Johana Bhuiyan / @jmbooyah : Opposition also includes trade orgs like the CA manufacturers and technology associations and civil justice association of CA — companies like Ford, intel, GM, Hyundai sit on the board of those orgs. Most referred me to the orgs for comment & some said they haven't taken a stance Lauren Berson / @laurenberson : So impressed by @susanthesquark and all her efforts to not only talk abt what she went through but to take real action. https://twitter.com/... Johana Bhuiyan / @jmbooyah : So Gov Brown vetoed a version of this bill in 2015. New version only applies to future employment agreements — it wouldn't preempt existing contracts. The CA chamber of commerce put it on it job killers list again bc it thinks it opens companies up to increased risk of litigation Susan Fowler / @susanthesquark : Important research by @EconomicPolicy on the growing use of forced arbitration https://www.epi.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years after her essay on Uber's workplace culture made her name, Susan Fowler is moving from whistleblower to legislator-by-proxy: she is joining Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, the California Labor Federation, and the Economic Policy Institute to introduce AB3080, which would make arbitration a choice rather than a condition of employment in California. The state has been here before — Governor Brown vetoed a version of a forced-arbitration bill in 2015 — and business groups like the California Chamber of Commerce are again lining up against it as a 'job killer.'
The ground has shifted since that veto. Google unilaterally ended mandatory arbitration for current and future employees in 2019, and firms like Keller Lenkner and FairShake have shown arbitration clauses can be weaponized in reverse, filing thousands of individual claims against gig companies such as DoorDash at once. Fowler's bill would convert those voluntary retreats into law.
First-order effects
- If AB3080 passes, every California employer using mandatory arbitration clauses — including gig platforms whose workforce disputes are already live — must make arbitration voluntary, and the California Chamber of Commerce and allied trade associations are positioned as the organized opposition warning of litigation risk.
- Fowler personally gains a policy vehicle for her stated mission ('not going to stop until forced arbitration is no longer allowed'), converting the credibility from her Uber disclosure into standing alongside Gonzalez and the Economic Policy Institute.
Second-order effects
- Companies that conceded voluntarily, like Google, lose the reputational value of having moved first — a statute flattens their preemption into a compliance baseline, while holdout employers face the cost of defending clauses that branded competitors already abandoned.
- The bill adds a second legal front for gig-economy companies already fighting on worker classification, where labor groups have rejected Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's proposed third category — arbitration and employment status become a coordinated pressure campaign rather than separate fights.
Third-order effects
- California is assembling a stack of worker-voice legislation — AB3080 on arbitration, followed by the Ozoma-backed bill letting workers under NDAs speak about any discrimination — that functions as a template other states and Congress can copy, with Fowler and Ozoma as the recognizable faces that make the template exportable.
- If forced arbitration falls, the mass-filing model pioneered by Keller Lenkner and FairShake becomes the default enforcement mechanism for workplace claims, shifting leverage from HR departments and private arbitrators toward plaintiffs' firms and public courts.
The trend: Workplace dispute resolution is migrating from private, employer-chosen arbitration toward statutory and public-court channels, propelled by individual whistleblowers converting their cases into legislative campaigns.