At Leonard Carder, we are pleased to work with some of the best known unions in the Bay Area and the West Coast,
including unions in the maritime, hospitality, grocery, and
transportation industries, as well as construction trade
unions and numerous public sector unions. Our clients rely on us to provide aggressive, cost-effective representation in federal and state court litigation, in labor arbitrations and in front of administrative agencies, as well as to provide expert
advice concerning union organizing, negotiation, internal union matters, and numerous other issues. Some highlights of our practice include the following:
• For decades, Leonard Carder has been privileged to serve as general counsel to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), a union renowned for its democracy, leftist politics and unyielding representation of its members. We have defended numerous legal challenges to the union’s
right to engage in strikes, picketing and other speech and protest activities, assisted the union in bargaining strong contracts, and helped fight off all manner of challenges to the union’s jurisdiction and power.
We have been actively involved in recent ILWU organizing drives throughout the West Coast, including: an industrywide organizing drive among bicycle and driver messengers that has involved innovative organizing strategies and high-profile litigation, organizing at Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon; and countless organizing projects involving unrepresented employees working at or near all major ports on the West Coast. In the
course of our work on these campaigns, we have been instrumental in strengthening legal precedent related to organizing. (See, for instance, NLRB v. Stephen Dunn & Associates, 241 F.3d 652 (2000)). Our work with the ILWU has also taken us into areas of law far afield from traditional labor law,
including Port Security following September 11th, work in front of the Public Utilities Commission, Immigration Law and Open Government reform litigation (see ILWU v. Los Angeles Export Terminal, 69 Cal. App. 4th 287 (1999)).
Leonard Carder is also proud to serve as general counsel to the Marine Firemen Oilers & Wipers (MFOW), which for 115 years has represented unlicensed engine-room workers on vessels sailing out of U.S. ports. Here too, our work has taken us into the area of legislative and regulatory reforms related to
the complex array of international treaties and federal laws governing mariners, in addition to the more traditional range of legal issues affecting the Union. We also helped to establish the only Labor Management Cooperation Committee in the maritime industry, a coalition of six unions and several
maritime employers with the primary purpose of coordinating training programs for mariners in order to meet new international and national standards of competencies.
Finally in the maritime industry, Leonard Carder serves as West Coast counsel to the Mates & Pilots (MM&P), and as the primary West Coast attorneys for the International Transport Federation (ITF). We have worked with attorneys from around the world in defending the rights of dockworkers
internationally, as well as crew members on ocean-going vessels, who work in modern-day sweatshops. As part of this work, Leonard Carder successfully petitioned a federal court in Los Angeles to order the arrest and sale of the terribly unsafe ocean-going freighter M/VFotini (nicknamed the “Death
Ship”), with the proceeds of the sale going to the crew to satisfy their claims for back pay and unseaworthy conditions.
• In the hospitality industry, Leonard Carder has provided legal support to the aggressive organizing of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2, the largest private sector local union in San Francisco. In a well-known case involving issues of preemption and card check neutrality, Leonard
Carder successfully enforced a card check agreement against the notoriously anti-union Marriott Corporation. (Hotel Employees, Restaurant Employees Union Local 2 v. Marriott Corp., 961 F.2d 1464 (9th Cir. 1992)). This case, together with litigation of over 100 unfair labor practice charges, a
federal court challenge to Marriott’s violation of California’s Labor Code, and a myriad of other types of legal work, helped Local 2 win its hard-fought 13-year fight to organize and obtain a fair contract for Marriott employees.
• In the grocery industry, our work on behalf of various Northern California locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has helped Leonard Carder gain a reputation for creative advocacy and for promoting union democracy. Our unprecedented work against sexual harassment resulting from
Safeway’s “mandatory smile rule,” widely covered in the media, led to significant reforms in the company’s policies.
• In the transportation industry, our work on behalf of several locals of the Amalgamated Transit Union has involved Leonard Carder in legal issues relating to transit strikes, drug testing, and countless other issues. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, in a
media interview concerning negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement covering employees of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), described Leonard Carder partner Victoria Chin as “one of the sharpest negotiators he’d ever come across,” noting that he would like her to come handle
labor negotiations for the City.
• In the construction trades, Leonard Carder works with local unions such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Locals
6, 595 and 1245, and the International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 8, handling matters ranging from arbitration to federal court litigation.
• Leonard Carder also has a substantial practice representing professional and clerical employee unions in the the public and private sectors. In the course of our work with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21, we are actively involved in cases involving the
cities of San Francisco, Oakland and other Bay Area localities, while our work on behalf of Office and Professional Employees International Union, Local 29, has included litigating issues involving Kaiser Permanente’s misuse of temporary agency employees.
• Leonard Carder is also state-wide counsel to two unions representing employees at the University Of California -- the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), which represents lecturers and librarians, and the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), which represents the largest public sector
bargaining unit in the nation, a unit of 18,000 clerical employees. Leonard Carder provides a wide range of legal services to these unions, including handling advice and litigation pertaining to the Unions’ recent strikes at Berkeley and four other campuses.
• Leonard Carder actively works
with many unions on drafting legislation, as well as
on campaign finance contribution issues and
other election matters.
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