In the case of 14 Penn Plaza LLC et al. v. Steven Pyett et al., the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of employers, allowing them to require employees to arbitrate their age discrimination claims rather than taking them directly to court. The plaintiffs, three unionized workers, alleged that they were discriminated against based on their age by their employer and filed a lawsuit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). However, as part of a collective bargaining agreement between their union and employer, all employment-related disputes were subject to arbitration instead of litigation. The Supreme Court held that when a labor contract clearly mandates arbitration for ADEA claims then federal courts must enforce this provision according to its terms.

In the dissenting opinion for 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Steven Pyett, Justice Souter argued that the majority's decision to allow unions to waive employees' rights to sue their employers in court was a departure from established precedent. He contended that previous cases had made it clear that collective bargaining agreements could not be used to prevent individual workers from pursuing statutory discrimination claims in court. The majority's interpretation of Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, according to Justice Souter, ignored this history and undermined worker protections against discriminatory practices. Furthermore, he expressed concern about whether unions could adequately represent individual interests in arbitration proceedings given potential conflicts of interest between collective needs and those of specific members.