Labor-management relations

Paul Salvatore

Paul Salvatore provides strategic labor and employment law advice to companies, boards of directors/trustees, senior executives and general counsel in such areas as labor-management relations, litigation, alternative dispute resolution, international labor and employment issues, and corporate transactions. Paul negotiates major collective bargaining agreements in several industries, including real estate and construction. He represents the NYC real estate industry’s multi-employer organization, the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB), and its principal trade organization, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY). In 2022, he helped the RAB reach a new collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 32BJ, covering more than 30,000 residential building employees. Paul also represented the Cement League, a multiemployer group of NYC area superstructure contractors, in halting an illegal strike by the Carpenters Union and negotiating a significant new, more competitive, collective bargaining agreement. He previously negotiated, on behalf of The Related Companies with 18 New York City construction unions, a landmark project labor agreement (PLA) for Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, the largest private real estate development in U.S. history. In 2019, he assisted Related in resolving the very public labor disputes at Hudson Yards in time for its grand opening. He also represented REBNY in negotiating its 2019 landmark “Statement of Principles” with NYC’s construction unions. For his work in this sector, City & State magazine has named him one of the most powerful lawyers in New York. Paul tries arbitrations and litigations, and argues appeals, arising from labor-management relationships. Paul argued and won before the U.S. Supreme Court 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett. In a 5-4 decision of importance to employers, the Court held a collective bargaining agreement that explicitly requires unionized employees to arbitrate employment discrimination claims is enforceable, modifying 35 years of labor law. In 2016, he argued and won NBC Universal Media, LLC v. NLRB, where the D.C. Circuit -- rejecting the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) analysis -- found “the reasoning supporting the [NLRB’s] judgment … incomprehensible.” In 2017, Paul argued and won T-Mobile v. NLRB where the Fifth Circuit refused to enforce the NLRB’s ban on certain common sense employee handbook policy provisions, finding the NLRB’s analysis to be unreasonable. Paul represents universities and colleges in their labor and employment relations, including in the currently active areas of graduate student and adjunct faculty union organizing. He represented Yale, Duke, Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis and other universities in their response to graduate student unionization after the NLRB’s controversial 2016 decision finding graduate teaching/research assistants to be employees under the labor law. He has negotiated innovative non-NLRB election agreements at Cornell and Brown Universities. An honors graduate of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and the Cornell Law School, Paul served eight years on Cornell’s Board of Trustees, including on its Executive Committee. Upon completion of his terms, he was elected Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor. Paul presently serves as a Trustee Member of the Board of Fellows of Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as on the Law School and ILR Deans’ Advisory Councils. In 2002, ILR awarded him the Judge William B. Groat prize, the school’s highest honor. At Proskauer, Paul was elected to its Executive Committee and served as co-chair of its global Labor & Employment Law Department. Paul counsels business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Litigation Center. An active speaker and writer on labor and employment law issues, his publications include “One Dozen Years of Pyett: A Win for Unionized Workplace Dispute Resolution” in the American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Journal, Volume 36, Number 2 at 257. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Cornell Law School.

Neil Abramson

Neil Abramson is the co-chair of Proskauer's Labor & Employment Law Department and head of the Public Sector Group. He handles all types of employment litigation, including discrimination claims, claims for breach of contract and claims arising from the collective bargaining relationship, as well as arbitrations, administrative proceedings and collective bargaining. Neil regularly handles complex collective bargaining disputes for private and public sector employers, including litigating matters before the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, various public interest arbitration panels, private grievance arbitrators and the National Labor Relations Board. Neil leads the legal representation of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in its collective bargaining disputes with transit and railroad workers and the City of New York in its collective bargaining disputes with teachers, police, fire, nurses and hospital staff. Neil also regularly handles collective bargaining disputes for multiemployer bargaining associations and single employers for such clients as Major League Baseball, The League of Voluntary Hospitals, The New York Times, Pratt Institute and The Broadway League. He also provides advice and guidance to clients, counseling employers on how to avoid litigation and achieve their employee relations objectives. Neil also has litigated single and multiple plaintiff matters in the state and federal courts of New York and a number of other jurisdictions and has extensive appellate advocacy experience. Among the clients Neil has represented are major corporations in such diverse fields as financial services, higher education, news media, transportation, sports, energy, entertainment and health care, as well as numerous public benefit and public service corporations.

Glenn Smith

Partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

Bryan O'Keefe

Partner, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP

Karla Sanchez

Partner, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP.

Steven Porzio

Steven J. Porzio is a partner in Proskauer's Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of Proskauer's Labor-Management Relations Group. Steve assists both unionized and union-free clients with a full range of labor and employee relations matters. He represents employers in contract negotiations, arbitrations, and representation and unfair labor practice cases before the National Labor Relations Board. Steve has experience conducting vulnerability assessments and providing management training in union and litigation avoidance, leave management, wage and hour, and hiring and firing practices. He provides strategic and legal advice in certification and decertification elections, union organizing drives, corporate campaigns, picketing and union contract campaigns. Steve has represented employers in a number of different industries, including higher education, health care, construction and manufacturing in successful efforts against unions in election and corporate campaigns. In addition to his traditional labor law work, Steve assists companies with handbook and personnel policy drafting and review, daily management of employee disciplines and terminations, and general advice and counsel on compliance with federal and state employment laws. Steve’s litigation experience includes work on matters before state and federal courts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, the New York State Division of Human Rights and various other administrative agencies. He has litigated matters involving age, race, national origin, gender and disability discrimination, wage and hour, whistleblower and wrongful termination claims. While attending the Syracuse University College of Law, Steve served as the editor-in-chief of the Syracuse Science and Technology Law Reporter. He also received the Robert F. Koretz scholarship, awarded in recognition of excellence in the study of labor law.