Texas Watch—Consumer Protection. Corporate Accountability. Citizen Advocacy.

Congress is expected to pass legislation by Christmas that would ban defense contractors from forcing employees into arbitration in discrimination and sexual assault lawsuits on contracts of more than $1 million. The bill stems from the alleged rape of former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones by three coworkers in 2005 while she was in Iraq. The no-arbitration clause will have some minor exceptions, such as allowing arbitration if “it is necessary to avoid harm to national security interests of the United States.”