Recent Developments

Attorney Jillian Ryan persuaded a hearing officer of the Department of Labor Relations that the City of Boston unlawfully removed bargaining unit work from Salaried Employees of North America (SENA) and gave it away to a non-union worker. SENA is Local 9158 of the United Steelworkers.

Last night, Franklin Town Council voted 8-1 to fund a new collective bargaining agreement for Franklin Fire Fighters, Local 2637, IAFF. Attorney Leah Barrault is attorney for Local 2637 and persuaded a three-member arbitration panel to unanimously award a new contract that the panel unanimously found the Town could afford. Barrault and Attorney Patrick Bryant coordinated a legal campaign to ensure that the Town complied with its obligations to support the award.

Pyle Rome Attorneys Leah Barrault and Patrick Bryant have filed an unfair labor practice on behalf of Franklin Fire Fighters, Local 2637 IAFF, alleging that Town Administrator is coordinating a campaign to defeat a unanimous arbitration award from a neutral panel. The Town Administrator has a duty to unconditionally support funding the Award. The campaign is believed to involve lobbying of individual Council members, prohibiting individual Councillors from meeting with the Union, and private Council deliberations outside of the public eye.

Attorney James Hykel convinced a neutral arbitrator to reinstate a per diem, or part-time nurse represented by Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5221, AFT. Attorney David Rome provided advice throughout the grievance process.

Here, the University of Vermont Medical Center (VMC) terminated the Grievant, an eight-year employee, because he failed to work the minimum number of hours required to maintain per diem employment.

In an unprecedented decision, a state arbitration panel has awarded a new hazardous duty stipend to all Waltham Fire Fighters represented by IAFF Local 866. The stipend is rolled into the base for purposes of overtime and retroactive to the beginning of the agreement, July 1, 2013.

Matt Reddy, a full-time Lynn fire fighter and Direct Vice President of Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, served as the labor representative to the three-person panel. All three panel members of the panel, including the management representative, approved the award of a hazardous duty stipend.

In one of the first local elections held under the NLRB’s new rules, about 30 in-patient physical therapists at Boston Medical Center voted overwhelmingly to join 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and an existing unit of more than 1,500 BMC health care employees. Attorney David Rome helped Massachusetts chapter of 1199SEIU navigate the new NLRB procedures.

A neutral arbitrator agreed with Attorney Jillian Ryan and UFCW Local 328 that a credit union lacked just cause to terminate a teller for violating company policy. It was undisputed that the teller failed to involve a supervisor in resolving a dispute about amount of money deposited by a client. The parties further agreed that the teller's mistake caused her till to be off by $900. The parties disputed whether termination was the appropriate penalty.

An administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board has agreed that the employee handbook of retail titan Macy's violates federal labor law. Attorneys Alfred Gordon O'Connell and Jillian Ryan filed a brief in support of the unfair labor practice charge filed by Pyle Rome Ehrenberg, PC client UFCW Local 1445. They persuaded the judge to order Macy's to notify all of its employees across the country that it has changed its unlawful rules and to post a notice in all its U.S.

Attorney Tod Cochran persuaded an arbitrator that warehouse employees represented by
UFCW Local 791 and who are forced to stay and work after midnight on Easter Sunday are entitled to double time pay under the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.

A neutral arbitrator agreed with Attorney Ian Russell that Bridgewell, Inc. lacked just cause to terminate a low-wage driver for a first-time offense of improper cell phone use. SEIU Local 509 negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that provides for just cause protections against employe discipline. Just cause is widely recognized to require that an employer apply progressive discipline, meaning that discipline should follow an incremental process (counseling, then warning, then suspension) before imposing termination.