Labor and employment counseling

Overview

Your business should be proactive when it comes to employment practices. You want to provide a safe, fair work environment with policies and procedures that are compliant with the latest legislation. At McDonald Hopkins, we can counsel you on both and help you develop best practices for your business. We actively stay abreast of the latest labor and employment legislative developments so you don’t have to – and we pass along helpful information in the form of blog posts, alerts and complimentary webcasts and events. If a change affects your operations, we can work with you to adapt or respond to any pending legislation.

Our areas of expertise at the state and federal level include:

• Statutory compliance advice on:
  • Family and Medical Leave Act
  • Fair Labor Standards Act
  • Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
  • Age Discrimination in Employment Act
  • Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act
  • Other state and federal employment laws
• Drafting:
  • Employment agreements
  • Non-compete agreements
  • Separation agreements
  • Employee handbooks and policies
• Counseling on:
  • Administration of policies
  • Employee leaves of absence
  • Recruitment
  • Hiring
  • Benefit coordination
  • Discipline
  • Termination
  • Strategic business issues

Representative Matters

• Conducting wage and hour audits of many institutions, including a Fortune 500 staffing company, a 2,500 employee hospital group, an 800 employee health and social work provider, and numerous other service and manufacturing companies.
• Negotiating several national agreements with the United Steelworkers of America (“USWA”) for companies with combined annual revenues of six billion dollars.
• Representing clients in interest based bargaining in both the private and public sectors.
• Handling all labor and employment legal issues related to the merger of two major national manufacturing companies, including defending reduction in force of nearly 1000 employees, and negotiating new labor arrangements with unions in five states and two countries.
• Developing new regional employment policies for a large medical group and negotiating new labor contracts with its union to achieve increased efficiencies and cost savings, eliminating defined benefit plans, reducing legacy costs, and encouraging constructive labor relations in the future.
• Providing workshops and training sessions on behalf of numerous employers on a wide variety of employment-related concerns, including labor relations, sexual and other employment discrimination.
• Developing and implementing proactive strategies for companies with high workers’ compensation costs to improve their claims management and reduce their expenses.
• Obtaining a summary judgment in favor of our client, a national managed care organization, in a matter involving claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and  successfully handling the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.