Practice Areas

Alternative Dispute Resolution

We are uniquely suited to offer the creativity and experience that it takes to make alternative dispute resolution, including arbitration and mediation, successful.

Routinely we provide advice to private and public unions on all aspects of arbitration and mediation. This includes pre-filing advice such as defining and evaluating disputed issues and resolution procedures as well as advocating during the process and challenging resolutions.

Arbitration

When disagreements cannot be resolved, we are skilled at enforcing agreement terms in both voluntary and compulsory arbitration.

Our arbitration experience covers such varied topics as discipline and discharge, job evaluation, job elimination and layoffs, bargaining-unit placement, overtime pay, pay differentials, supervisors doing bargaining unit work, holiday pay, transfers, promotions, subcontracting and transfers of work, and drug testing.

Mediation

In addition to advocating our clients’ positions in arbitration proceedings, we are highly experienced in dispute resolution through the use of neutral mediators and fact finders.

We routinely serve as negotiators or as strategists during mediations. We also assist unions in analyzing and interpreting collective bargaining agreements and other relevant documents.

Awards

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Who’s Who Legal Awards

Charter Fellows of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers

Former Chairs of the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section

New York Super Lawyers

Former Chairs of the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section

Former Chair of the American Bar Association’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee

AV Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell

Practice Highlights

  • Successfully litigated a high-profile plant relocation case whereby millions of dollars of back pay were collected and the union was awarded recognition at the relocated workplace.
  • In a uniquely favorable result, the court directed an employer to pay the union’s attorneys’ fees after we successfully enforced, through litigation, an arbitrator’s award in favor of the union.
  • Successfully litigated numerous cases to either stop double-breasted operations or secure favorable long-term union contracts to limit double-breasting.
  • Obtained an NLRB decision barring the merger of a subsidiary’s longstanding union pension plan into the multi-national parent’s non-collectively bargained pension plan.
  • Obtained summary judgment, on behalf of a large state-wide labor union, dismissing a class action that sought substantial damages for alleged violations of the duty of fair representation and ERISA in connection with pension benefits.
  • Successfully litigated NLRB Section 10(j) injunction cases. In one instance we obtained an order barring a plant relocation within the United States. In another, we obtained an order requiring recognition of the union and application of the labor contract by a successor employer at a relocated workplace.