Employers face a host of complex legal issues that require a careful review. Vinson & Elkins’ Employment, Labor and OSHA lawyers have decades of experience advising management on legal issues involved in union organizational campaigns involving most major unions, such as Service Employees, Teamsters, PACE, Steelworkers, UFCW, Machinists, IBEW, various other craft unions, and stage and motion picture employees.
V&E provides legal counsel to employers on union matters. The firm provides training on the legal issues in union matters for managers and supervisors; it defends representation petitions before the National Labor Relations Board; represents management in unfair labor practice investigations and trials, corporate campaigns, and decertification proceedings; and we offer guidance on labor relations during mergers and acquisitions.
We are also able to share important insights gained through representation of unionized employers in collective bargaining negotiations and arbitrations. This knowledge covers a broad range of industries and work forces, including technology (white collar and manufacturing), office and clerical, hospital systems, and other healthcare providers, manufacturing, refining and chemical, airlines (reservation agents and mechanics), trucking, performing arts, daycare, pipeline, and hotel workers.
Representative Matters- V&E represented a client in a series of arbitration cases which upheld the reasonableness of random drug and alcohol testing for represented workforces in oil refineries. These cases became the precedent for the entire U.S. refining industry. V&E also has advised companies in the technology, financial services, and other industries with respect to union prevention strategies.
- Apart from V&E’s experience in handling such matters as regulated by the National Labor Relations Act, the firm has represented airlines, both domestic and international, on matters pertaining to labor issues, contract negotiations, and other labor issues under the Railway Labor Act and before the Railway Labor Commission, federal courts, and other government agencies including the IRS. In business transactions, V&E has assisted the buyer in determining whether the company must bargain with the seller’s union after closing and if so, the firm has assisted with the bargaining effort and in decertification efforts.
- V&E represented a major oil refinery in East Texas throughout the 1980s in connection with all its collective bargaining activities, including grievances and arbitrations, collective bargaining negotiations, and unfair labor practice charges, as well as federal court litigation. The firm also represents a major meat packing company throughout Texas and the Mid-West in connection with these same types of labor matters.