Workplace Law

The workplace is a reflection of the economy and society around it. Economic swings and social change impact the workplace and challenge employers. Building and maintaining a positive, high-performing, cost-effective workplace is critical to employers’ success. Multi-layered, ever changing and expanding, state and federal workplace laws, regulations, and decisions of courts and agencies burden employers in achieving workplace goals and objectives, regardless of business or industry.

Employers need a workplace resource partner to overcome the burdens and meet the challenges. Bodman’s Workplace Law Group is that resource. We help employers meet the increasing need for practical, comprehensive guidance on workplace issues. Our 20-member team has both an in-depth understanding of labor and employment law and a deep appreciation of our clients’ need for quick, direct answers to help them achieve concrete objectives. We provide innovative problem solving to promote a more positive workplace.

The Workplace Law Group offers employers a full range of human capital legal services, whether workers are hourly or salaried; technical or professional; blue, green or white collar; or something in between. From hire to fire, layoff or retirement, we cover policy, process, agreements, union avoidance, litigation, and the bargaining and administration of labor contracts. We help the employer make the workplace really work.

Our Services:

Our philosophy is to prevent and resolve employment and labor disputes by counseling management and human capital professionals on day-to-day employment and labor issues, including:

• Wage/hour, overtime, and payroll issues
• Creation and administration of employment policies, procedures, and handbooks
• Health care and fringe benefit programs
• Compliance with ADA, FMLA, and Workers’ Compensation laws
• Cross-border compliance with employment laws of host and guest countries
• Discipline and termination, including misconduct investigations
• Performance evaluation
• Tax qualified employee benefit plans and ERISA compliance
• Reductions-in-force, consolidation, and reorganization
• Organizational planning
• Facility closings and WARN Act
• Pre-employment screening, interviewing, and hiring
• Privacy and surveillance issues
• Substance abuse, including drug and alcohol testing
• Avoiding, investigating, and remedying discrimination and harassment
• COBRA, HIPAA, and other health-related laws
• Union avoidance and union organizing
• Labor contract administration, arbitration, and bargaining
• Employment contracts, including restrictive covenants and non-compete agreements
• Executive compensation agreements
• Employment records and documentation
• Affirmative action, including OFCC compliance
• Workplace violence policy and prevention
• Contingent, temporary, and leased employees
• Withdrawal from multi-employer pensions 

In instances when preventive action is not effective, we partner with employers, in-house counsel, and human capital professionals, to defend against workplace lawsuits and administrative actions before state and federal trial and appellate courts. We also defend claims before state and federal enforcing agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Department of Labor, and in arbitrations. The actions we defend include:

• Wrongful discharge
• Discrimination based on age, sex, race, national origin, religion, or other protected categories
• Compliance with disability laws, including ADA and FMLA
• Retaliation
• Breach of contract
• Defamation, invasion of privacy, and emotional injury
• Whistleblowers retaliation
• ERISA claims, including multi-employer pension contribution and withdrawal claims 
• Unfair labor practice charges
• Union organizing campaigns
• Breach of peace and strike injunctions

We also enforce and defend for employers  in court various protective agreements such as non-compete, non-solicitation, and non-disclosure agreements.

We know that well-informed employers can prevent or resolve employment disputes before embarking on costly litigation. One way we keep our clients informed is through our annual survey of employers’ calls for help to our Workplace Law Group, which serves as a barometer of hot button workplace issues. We also publish a quarterly newsletter, distribute “Workplace Law E-Alerts” on breaking employment issues and offer periodic seminars on workplace law topics.

Representative Matters:

Our attorneys assisted a Tier-1 auto supplier in implementing a workforce reduction of more than 1,000. We prepared the separation plan documents, separation agreement and release of claims. In the one lawsuit that resulted from the reductions, we obtained dismissal of the employee’s claims of gender and age discrimination and retaliation on summary judgment.

A national restaurant chain relied on us to appeal a lower court ruling that the employer’s pre-employment arbitration agreement was unenforceable. We obtained reversal of the lower court ruling.

We counseled an auto-related manufacturer that a union had targeted for organization. The employees soundly rejected the union campaign. We also helped a global service company defeat a Canadian union organizing drive at a center employing over 1,000 workers.

For unionized clients, we developed an eight-step business plan that provides a comprehensive roadmap to the collective bargaining process, changing a game of chance to a game plan for bargaining success. This plan enabled a regional medical center to reach a new, productive, long term agreement with its RNs, who overwhelmingly ratified the agreement with no patient care disruption.

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of one of North America’s largest construction suppliers in a federal court case in which the employee alleged discrimination and retaliation under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

We represented a community hospital after the Teamsters Union narrowly won the right to represent the hospital’s nurses and called a strike when it did not achieve its goals in initial bargaining. With our guidance, the hospital continued to deliver quality care with replacement nurses and successfully battled the union’s “hassle” campaign. The union was ultimately decertified.

We successfully represented a global supplier of human tissues for pharmaceutical research in multistate litigation to enforce a non-compete agreement.

Representing a global cement business, we have achieved one of the largest judgments on motion to enforce a non-compete agreement against a departing disloyal former executive.

A large financial institution turned to Bodman when a long term employee sued, claiming discrimination after being discharged soon after announcing her pregnancy. We achieved dismissal of the claim, demonstrating that the employee was actually discharged for violating the employer’s code of ethics.

We represented a global producer of lime and lime products in a labor contract wrongful discharge arbitration, persuading the arbitrator to uphold the discharge of the long-service employee for falsifying a medical slip to justify an extended absence.

We represented a global accounting firm before the EEOC, obtaining dismissal of claims by former job applicants of age and race discrimination when we demonstrated that the applicants had been denied employment for legitimate business reasons.

We represented a Tier-1 automotive supplier in an arbitration proceeding that upheld the employer’s ability to outsource work, which is vital to automotive industry clients as they seek to address economic pressures.

• Email this page