Strike Support. Although our practice strives to help clients in avoiding needless strikes, we are well equipped to provide timely and efficient advice and support when strikes do occur. Our attorneys are often successful in obtaining injunctive relief against violent picketing and breach-of-contract strikes, and we are prepared to respond swiftly in such fast-breaking situations.

We also offer substantial legal and practical experience in pre-strike planning, including developing pre-strike preparation plans and supervisory training on practical ways to plan for and respond to labor disruptions. We focus on strategies that minimize the impact of a strike on a client’s business and shorten strikes without compromising underlying business goals.

Secondary Boycotts. The avoidance of needless strikes is a primary goal of the firm’s employment attorneys. However, when strikes do occur, we provide timely and effective support. The company’s ability to prepare for and withstand a strike, boycott or corporate campaign is a crucial element in all comprehensive labor relations strategies.

We are experienced in handling a variety of NLRB and litigation-related matters that arise from secondary boycotts and resulting unfair labor practice charges and injunction proceedings. Vedder Price counsels and advises management on strategies to avoid or minimize secondary union activity such as boycotts, picketing, hand billing, patrolling and threats to picket customers and/or suppliers. We regularly advise clients on the appropriateness of reserved gates to defeat picketing of suppliers at your site.

Corporate Campaign Responses. Unions and their support organizations are becoming increasingly adept at “top down” organizing, i.e., placing pressure on corporate executives to agree to union representation or some variation thereof, such agreement to remain neutral or organizing through card check. Unions will often “front” these activities through vaguely denominated organizations with close ties to the organizers and/or though “anonymous” complaints to OSHA, EEOC or other government agencies that investigate employment work sites. Such pressure can come from a variety of sources, including community activist organizations, aligned ministries and sympathetic political leaders. Vedder Price provides timely advice on effective solutions to companies caught in the cross-hairs of corporate campaigns.