Excerpted from courthousenews.com, by Nicholas Iovino

Drivers who lost their jobs last year when Uber pulled out of Austin, Texas, asked a federal judge on June 15 to nullify arbitration clauses that would block them from suing the ride-hailing giant as a class.

Lead plaintiff Todd Johnston sued Uber in June 2016, claiming it violated the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act when it abruptly stopped operating in Austin.

The San Francisco-based startup pulled out of the Texas capital in May last year after voters rejected an Uber and Lyft-backed proposal to repeal a city law requiring stringent, fingerprint background checks for drivers.

During a hearing in the Northern District of California on June 15, class attorney John Davis told U.S. District Judge Edward Chen that the WARN Act contains a “contrary congressional command” that guarantees workers the right to sue their employer as a class.

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