Mid-way through 2012, the Hotel Association of New York City and the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council, AFL-CIO (the “Union”), renewed a seven-year collective bargaining agreement known as the Industry Wide Agreement, or IWA. While the IWA controls nearly all aspects of the employer-employee relationship for covered hospitality organizations, it does much more and can potentially bind the unsuspecting. One important part of the agreement which hospitality employers must heed […]

As one of the seminal decisions of 2014, USW and Tenaris Algoma Tubes Inc. raised the issues of off-duty conduct, sexual harassment / threats and social media. The grievance arbitration decision upheld the dismissal of an employee after he posted sexually threatening and harassing comments regarding another employee on his Facebook page.

Most of the facts were not in dispute. On the day in question, the grievor (referred to as “D”) was […]