The Evolving Workplace and the Surge in Unionization

"Melanie Webber is a partner in the firm’s Cleveland office and serves as chair of the firm’s Women’s Initiative and Leadership Council. She represents and advises clients in all aspects of employment matters and labor relations.

Over her career, she has also represented employers on traditional labor issues such as union organizing campaigns, unfair labor practice charges and labor arbitrations—before administrative agencies that include the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC).

Union avoidance has been at the heart of Melanie’s practice for years. Melanie has significant experience in advising clients during union organizing campaigns, including helping her clients avoid union activity through her work in identifying workplace issues and creating strategies to effectively address those issues. Melanie oversees our Cleveland office’s HR practices group, which assists employers with their union prevention strategies utilizing employee engagement surveys, advising employers about establishing and conducting lawful employee roundtables and providing supervisor and manager training on employee relations strategies.
Melanie has defended non-union and unionized employers in unfair labor practice and representation election proceedings before numerous NLRB regions. She also has experience in grievance arbitrations. Melanie will be assisting with efforts to prepare non-union facilities for organizing activity and with guiding the organization’s response to organizing where it may occur.
Melanie believes in developing positive, proactive employee relations programs (including employee opinion surveys) with her clients and can guide them through employment practice, human resource and wage-hour audits.

In addition, she helps clients develop employment handbooks and personnel policies and procedures and provides them with valuable insight regarding potential human resource issues throughout the life cycle of employment.

An engaging speaker, Melanie frequently conducts supervisor and management trainings for employers, as well as presentations to her peers on a variety of employment law issues, including maintaining union-free status, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), sexual harassment and managing employees under a union contract.

"Deborah R. Pierce, Esq., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is Senior Vice President & General Counsel for Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc.
Deborah joined Integrity in 2011 with the mission to establish in-house legal and employee relations functions. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., is a national high volume staffing agency based in Newark, Delaware, with over 100 offices in 24 states. Some of Integrity’s clients include Amazon.com, Target, Home Depot, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase.

Deborah has held executive level legal, human resources and compliance positions at companies such as DuPont, Continental Airlines, Campbell Soup, Sears, and Home Depot. She was appointed to the Senior Executive Service and served as the Regional Solicitor for Region III - U.S. Department of Labor.
Deborah earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. She is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, Federal Courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States. Deborah is a certified Mediator and has presided over 400 private sector and Federal agency cases. In 2020 she was recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal as “Best of the Bar” and in 2021 she was inducted into the Marquis “Who’s Who in America”. Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), the global advisors on contingent work, selected Deborah to on the Global Power 150 – Women in Staffing list for 2022.

Deborah also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Home of the Sparrow, a nonprofit organization that prevents homelessness for women by teaching life skills and is a member of the American Staffing Association Legal and Legislative Committee."

"Latrice Lee is Senior Corporate Counsel, Labor and Employment for Alaska Airlines. In this role, she is responsible for providing advice and counsel to business leaders, managing labor negotiations, labor arbitrations, litigation, investigations, and outside counsel.

Prior to joining Alaska Airlines, Latrice was an employment attorney for both Microsoft and Lowe's Companies. Her private practice experience was at Polsinelli PC, in Kansas City, MO, where she handled wage and hour class actions and individual suits regarding discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, disability accommodation and compliance matters.

Latrice received her law degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law and her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina. She is the Executive Vice President- Elect for the Junior League of Seattle as well as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and Jack and Jill of America, Inc."

Andrea is an experienced in-house employment attorney who advises Pharmavite, the maker of Nature Made vitamins, on a broad range of issues shaping the modern workplace. Her practice includes advice and counseling, directing privileged investigations, resolving pre-litigation disputes, managing litigation, and providing employment law support to Pharmavite's facilities in California and Alabama.