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On March 2, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear oral argument in a case that could test the boundaries of mandatory arbitration, and determine whether employees can be tethered to arbitration agreements for years after leaving a company.
The potentially precedent-setting decision stems from a single defamation suit brought by former Tesla, Inc. employee Cristina Balan after the tech giant accused her of criminal behavior on the online news source, The Huffington Post.
1 While Tesla’s legal team maintains that all of Balan’s claims must be arbitrated, the U.S. District Court in Seattle disagreed, finding that some of Tesla’s statements to The Huffington Post fell outside the arbitration agreement with its former employee.
But in this edition, our last of 2020, I’d like to look back.
Throughout the year, my colleagues and I have covered COVID-19’s devastating effects on people across California small-business owners, Instacart drivers, Disneyland employees and more. We’ve kept a close eye on companies such as Tesla and Southern California Gas Co. And we’ve written about how life may change in 2021 and beyond. Here’s some of our best work.
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Living and working in the pandemic
Remember the long checkout lines and toilet paper shortages at grocery stores early in the pandemic? During the second week of March, Times staff members scattered across Southern California’s grocery stores to chronicle the mayhem.
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Good morning. I’m Rachel Schnalzer, the L.A. Times Business section’s audience engagement editor, with our weekly newsletter. For many working professionals, mid-December is synonymous with the office holiday party. But this year, for
obvious reasons, these in-person get-togethers are off the table.
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In a year in which many have lost so much, it may seem silly to reflect on what skipped holiday parties mean for work culture. But these events do serve a function, experts say. “You get to see people more as full humans,” says