The details regarding a California court ruling last week against Cisco's motion to deny an employee's right to a jury trial should serve as a wake up call to everyone seeking employment, whether at Cisco or somewhere else. The bottom line is that you may not be able to avoid signing an arbitration agreement, even when dealing with a highly ethical company that does not intend to subvert employee rights, but you can learn a lot about the company you are about to join by how that agreement is presented to you and the details of the terms.
The pros and cons of arbitration agreements can be debated but in general, binding arbitration tends to be a less expensive way to resolve employee disputes - something which may be particularly important to small companies that don't have deep pockets. Over the last several years arbitration has also been favored as a way to avoid further clogging up an already overburdened court system Unfortunately though , a big benefit for companies that are concerned with hiding discrimination challenges that can tarnish their reputation is that unlike litigation, arbitration is conducted in a private forum. Noone other than the company involved knows how many discrimination challenges have been leveled at the company or the details of those cases. It's all behind closed doors.
It's no surprise that Cisco would try to force all of their employees to sign binding arbitration agreements but there is a lot to learn from the nature of the agreement. For example: (1) First of all the arbitration terms were "hidden" in a document alleged by it's title to pertain to intellectual property rights which may suggest an attempt by Cisco to deceive. (2) The terms were heavily biased in favor of Cisco. Cisco retained the right to sue the employee however compelled the employee to give up their right to trial. (3) Cisco compelled the employee to agree to split the costs of arbitration. This is not legal.
You may not be able to avoid signing an arbitration agreement when you join your next company but pay attention to it's terms and how it is presented to you. That may tell you a lot about how the company treats it's employees and their commitment to fairness and ethical practices.