In a recent case involving the application of the Board’s standard for the employee status of graduate students, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) denied a request for review of a Regional Director’s (“RD”) decision finding that graduate students seeking a Masters of Fine Arts (“MFA”) degree
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.
He negotiates major collective bargaining agreements in several industries, including real estate and construction. Paul 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 2023, he helped the RAB reach a new collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 32BJ, covering 20,000 commercial building employees, enabling the industry to adapt its labor practices to tenants’ post-COVID utilization of office space, including that caused by remote/hybrid work.
Paul has long represented construction employers and developers, such as the Related Companies, Cement League, Association of Master Painters and others. He negotiates Project Labor Agreements (PLA’s), such as for Related (enabling the construction of Hudson Yards), and presently for Gateway Development Corporation (GDC) in building the New York-New Jersey train tunnels, the largest infrastructure project in America. City & State magazine has named him one of the most powerful lawyers in New York for his work in this sector.
Paul also tries arbitrations and litigations, and argues appeals, arising from labor-management relationships. He 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 that a collective bargaining agreement explicitly requiring unionized employees to arbitrate employment discrimination claims is enforceable, modifying 35 years of labor law. Unions and employers now negotiate “Pyett clauses” in collective bargaining. He has argued and won federal circuit court cases reversing the National Labor Relations Board’s findings against employers, including in the D.C. and Fifth Circuits.
Paul represents universities and colleges in their labor and employment relations, including in the currently active areas of unionization and collective bargaining with graduate students, undergraduates, athletes and adjunct faculty. Among other schools he has worked with are Yale, Duke, Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis and Caltech. Paul pioneered innovative non-NLRB graduate student union election agreements at Cornell, Brown and Syracuse 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. He subsequently was elected Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor. He 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, named during his tenure by The American Lawyer and Chambers USA as one of the premier U.S. practices. He is widely recognized as a leading U.S. labor and employment lawyer in such publications as Chambers Global and USA (Band 1), and Legal 500 (“Hall of Fame”). The National Law Journal selected Paul as one of "The Decade's Most Influential Lawyers" – one of only three in the labor and employment law field. His peers elected him to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.
An active speaker and writer on labor and employment law issues, Paul’s recent publications include “One Dozen Years of Pyett: A Win for Unionized Workplace Dispute Resolution” in the American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Journal (“ABA Journal”), Volume 36, Number 2 at 257, and “The PLA Alternative in an Increasingly Open Shop New York City Construction Market: The REBNY-BCTC Statement of Principles,” Volume 37 ABA Journal, Number 3 at 415. He is an Adjunct Professor at Cornell Law School, teaching “Current Issues in Collective Bargaining.”
NLRB GC Abruzzo Issues Guidance to Academic Institutions Addressing Conflicting Obligations under Labor and Student Privacy Laws
Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued Memorandum GC 24-06 seeking to clarify the obligations imposed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) on academic institutions to provide information to a union concerning student workers where the requested information may implicate the Family Educational…
No Limits (Revisited): D.C. Circuit Holds That Hotel Improperly Limited Bargaining Subjects
The D.C. Circuit just issued a cautionary decision to employers trying to set “ground rules” in negotiations that limit the topics of bargaining. As we previously covered, in December 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) found that Troutbeck Company, a company that owns a hotel in…
Texas Federal Judge Enjoins Part of DOL Prevailing Wage Rule
On June 24, 2024, Judge Sam R. Cummings of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas enjoined part of a U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) Rule altering the Davis-Bacon Act. In his opinion, Judge Cummings held that the DOL had engaged in “egregious violations” of the U.S.
Sixth Circuit Panel Questions Board’s Emergency Pay Increase Ruling
On May 9, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit heard oral argument regarding the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) exception allowing an employer to unilaterally make decisions during an emergency. The Board sought court enforcement of its ruling that Metro Man IV LLC failed to notify…
When It Rains, It Pours – Several Appeals Lined Up to Challenge NLRB Precedent in Court
We have reported extensively over the last few years regarding the many pro-labor decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), which largely align with General Counsel (“GC”) Jennifer Abruzzo’s expansive prosecutorial agenda (discussed here and here). However, employers have not sat idly by in response to such…
Undergraduate Bargaining Units Are Here to Stay—and 20,000 Members Stronger
A growing trend of union organizing among undergraduate student workers reached a crescendo last week when a unit of 20,000 student assistants at California State University voted in favor of unionization.
California State University Employees Union Election
Student assistants across California State University’s 23 campuses have unequivocally voted to form…
New York Bans Mandatory Captive Audience Meetings
On September 6, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law (A6604 / S4982) a bill banning businesses from requiring employees to attend meetings or listen to communications where the “primary purpose” of such meetings or communications is for management to voice its views on certain religious…