BOSTON — May 4, 2016 —Terence P. McCourt and Justin F. Keith, shareholders in Greenberg Traurig, LLP’s Labor & Employment Group in Boston, were featured speakers at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) Eastern Region Conference, May 1 – 3, 2016, in Boston, MA.
On Tuesday, May 3rd from 1:30 - 2:45 p.m., McCourt and Keith co-presented “Unionizing on Campus: What’s at Stake for Higher Education Institutions?” The session offered practical recommendations on preparing for and addressing union organizing efforts on college and university campuses. Specific topics included:
- An overview of the legal landscape surrounding application of the NLRB at colleges and universities
- The impact of recent NLRB decisions on colleges and universities
- Issues involving unionization of graduate students under the current law (Brown University) as well as under the legal standard that certain labor organizations have urged the NLRB to adopt and overrule Brown
- Overview of pending NLRB cases that may impact colleges and universities
- Significant decisions in Northwestern University and Pacific Lutheran University
McCourt is managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig’s Boston office and chair of the office’s Labor & Employment Group. He represents a broad range of organizations in all facets of management-side labor and employment law. McCourt has more than two decades of practice and has gained a national reputation for his practical, solution-oriented approach to employment law issues. With wide-ranging litigation experience, he handles diverse employment matters, including employment discrimination and wrongful termination cases in state and federal courts, wage and hour compliance, labor arbitration cases, non-competition cases, internal corporate investigations, and NLRB proceedings. McCourt also counsels employers concerning day-to-day human resources issues as well as a myriad of legal requirements in the workplace, particularly related to significant operational changes such as mergers, acquisitions, business relocations, or reductions in force. Previously, he was Deputy Chief Legal Counsel to the Governor of Massachusetts and General Counsel to the Massachusetts Secretary of Labor.
Keith represents employers in all areas of labor and employment law, including litigation of discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims, reductions in force, and numerous other personnel and workplace issues. He is experienced with wage and hour class actions brought under the Massachusetts Wage Act and nationwide collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Keith regularly provides counsel to senior management and human resource personnel on employment law compliance matters, such as reductions in force, leaves of absence, exempt status classification under the FLSA and state law, employee discipline, and restrictive covenant agreements. Keith's practice encompasses all areas of traditional labor law, including union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining negotiations, unfair labor practice charges and representation case proceedings before the NLRB, union avoidance strategy and training, strike response and contingency planning, grievance arbitration proceedings, and appellate litigation before the NLRB and the Courts of Appeals.