Labor Law

SWB regularly represents our multiemployer association clients and private and public sector employers in traditional labor law matters. In many cases, we serve as lead negotiator in collective bargaining negotiations on behalf of our clients. This allows us to advocate on behalf of our clients in negotiations, formulate collective bargaining strategies, and to serve as an intermediary and resource to our clients as we prioritize our client’s goals in collective bargaining negotiations and understand what priorities exist for their labor organization partners. For our clients who prefer to utilize an executive or labor relations professional as a lead negotiator, we assist our clients as a legal advisor in connection with their good-faith bargaining obligations and analysis of the union’s bargaining proposals. Whether we are serving in a lead capacity or in an advisory capacity, we draft collective bargaining agreement proposals, tentative agreements, memoranda of agreement, strike contingency planning documents, and the text of collective bargaining agreements.

Away from the bargaining table, we regularly represent our clients in grievance arbitrations over interpretations of the collective bargaining agreement, discipline up to an including termination, work rules, rates of pay and overtime, jurisdictional disputes, claims of subcontracting or outsourcing of bargaining unit work, changes in fringe benefit plans (such as switching health insurance carriers or claims administrators, revising prescription drug benefit plan design and formularies, transitioning from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans), and the introduction of technological enhancements at construction work sites or manufacturing facilities. We also represent our clients in representational and unfair labor practice charge proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) and state labor relations boards such as the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (“PLRB”), including defending our clients from unfair labor practice charges brought by labor organizations alleging a failure to bargaining in good faith, a failure to provide requested information in response to an information request, discrimination on the basis of union affiliation, retaliation for employees engaging in protected, concerted activity, and bargaining unit clarifications and accretions in which labor organizations seek to add additional employees to existing bargaining units.

We also represent our clients who pursue unfair labor practice charges against labor organizations alleging failure to bargain in good faith, picketing in favor of or threatening a secondary boycott, the inclusion and/or enforcement of unlawful signatory subcontracting provisions in collective bargaining agreements covering construction-related work which is not performed at the site of construction within the meaning of the construction industry proviso to the “hot cargo” prohibitions of the NLRA, and jurisdictional dispute charges.

We advise our clients on traditional labor law matters including the differences between section 8(f) pre-hire collective bargaining agreements and section 9(a) collective bargaining relationships where an ongoing duty to bargain exists, the creation of multiemployer bargaining units and the NLRA rules associated with multiemployer bargaining, single employer matters whereby two nominally distinct entities may be considered the same “employer” within the meaning of the NLRA or for purposes of the obligations of a collective bargaining agreement based upon common ownership, common management, interrelationship of operations and interchange of employees, and centralized control of labor relations. We represent employers in labor disputes such as strikes and lockouts, including successfully obtaining injunctions in mass and whipsaw picketing cases. We also advise clients in plant closings and relocations, and labor-related due diligence in business mergers and other corporation transactions.

Finally, SWB regularly represents our association clients and construction contractors in project labor agreement (“PLA”) matters. In this regard, we assist in the negotiation of PLAs, draft PLAs to comply with applicable law such as the NLRA and Federal Executive Order 14063 and state procurement laws, and to provide our clients and the entities with whom they contract the ability to make efficient assignments of work and to expeditiously resolve disputes. We advocate on behalf of our association clients with governmental entities utilizing or considering the use of PLA’s for public construction projects, pursuing unfair labor practice charges to challenge illegal provisions of collective bargaining agreements such as PLA provisions mandating the inclusion of work not performed at the site of construction, and representing our clients in arbitration hearings regarding alleged breaches of PLA’s or challenges to jurisdictional assignments.