Workforce Bulletin

In the new issue of Take 5, our colleagues examine important and evolving issues confronting owners, operators, and employers in the hospitality industry:

• Avoiding “Perfectly Clear” Successor Status When Acquiring a Property with a Union Workforce Now Requires Greater Vigilance

• Restaurant Manager Misclassification Complaints Highlight Important Defense Strategies for Hospitality Owner/Operators

• Managing the Rise in Hospitality Data Breaches

• Buyer Beware: Purchasing Assets from a Unionized Employer May Come with a Nasty Withdrawal Liability Surprise

• Are ...

Most unionized hospitality employers have collective bargaining agreements which require contributions to multiemployer pension funds. In recent years, many of these pension funds have slipped into “endangered” or even “critical” status, and employers who have exited these funds have been hit with substantial assessments of withdrawal liability. These assessments often amount to millions of dollars in withdrawal liability.

Many employers are unfamiliar with the complicated procedures for contesting an assessment of withdrawal liability from a multiemployer ...

Our colleague Mark M. Trapp recently wrote an article entitled "Going Through Withdrawal: A Step-By-Step Guide to Arbitration in Multiemployer Withdrawal Liability Disputes" which appears in the current issue of the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law (members only).   

Following is an excerpt:

Many employers with a unionized workforce contribute to multiemployer pension funds established by collective bargaining agreements. In recent years, due to a variety of factors, most multiemployer funds have faced significant underfunding. As employers have exited these funds ...