Together, We Ended the Practice of Forced Arbitration – Benefitting Over 10 Million American Workers.

How We Did It

Ending Forced Arbitration was Adasina’s first investor mobilization campaign putting our Theory of Change into practice. By listening to and valuing the silenced workers, publishing our findings, implementing criteria and screens in our own products, and mobilizing values-aligned investors, we saw the full cycle of our efforts come to fruition in 2022 when the United States Senate passed bipartisan legislation to end the use of forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault claims in the workplace. 

With the help of our Social Justice Partners, Adasina created and implemented the first Sexual Harassment Investor Dataset (2019-2022) and launched the industry’s first Sexual Harassment Investment Screen. Our investor campaign powerfully mobilized public market investors around the issue, with a join investor statement and recommended strategies for shareholder advocacy. Adasina also engaged with media outlets, financial advocacy organizations, and philanthropists while ensuring survivor voices remained central to the discourse — notably featuring sexual harassment survivors in meetings with politicians to advocate for the Fair Process Pledge, ensuring those in power heard directly from those most affected by these critical workplace safety issues.

Adasina Leadership & Wins

• Through this campaign, we mobilized an investor coalition representing a collective AUM of $54 billion who advocated for an end to forced arbitration for sexual harassment cases.
• In close collaboration with our community partners, Adasina created and published an open-source database of publicly available information on 3,600 companies and their stance on forced arbitration.
• Political leaders such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders agreed to use the Fair Process Pledge for their respective presidential campaigns.
• Approximately, 396 companies voluntarily chose to end the practice of forced arbitration, impacting over 10 million workers.

Partnership Highlights

• Adasina joined the Survivor’s Agenda coalition led by UltraViolet and including #MeToo, Girls for Gender Equality, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Women’s Law Center, and Justice for Migrant Women.
• Criterion Institute: Adasina actively participated in annual convenings led by Criterion, a renowned leader in the financial industry known for its expertise in addressing gender-based violence in the workplace. Together, we collaborated to develop a compelling narrative on Forced Arbitration, elevating thought leadership for our Campaign.
• Clean Yield: Adasina worked in concert with Clean Yield, a champion of ending forced arbitration through their shareholder engagement with McDonald’s, IBM, and Wells Fargo.
• LedBetter: Adasina worked with LedBetter, a women of color-led organization that supported us by tracking company data and showcasing the number of women in leadership at the world’s top consumer brands and companies.
• GrabYourWallet: Adasina partnered with GrabYourWallet — an organization that launched a data-driven boycott campaign to protest Donald Trump administration’s consistent policy decisions to undermine the rights of women, immigrants, and communities of color — to collect and track data for our Sexual Harassment Investor Dataset.