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Industries

Kastner Westman & Wilkins, LLC
Our firm has provided effective labor and employment law counsel to employers in nearly every conceivable industry. The list of industries below is representative of the types of clients we routinely service. Even if your organization does not fit perfectly within one of the categories listed below, please give us a call to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Chemical/Polymer Industries

We understand the labor and employment issues that chemical or polymer industry employers face. One such area of concern for these employers is often the protection of their confidential and proprietary information. We help by developing defensible employment agreements, including non-competition, non-disclosure and non-solicitation agreements. We also have extensive experience helping chemical and polymer industry employers with OSHA compliance, FLSA compliance, labor relations, and more.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

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Construction Trades

We have extensive experience dealing with the issues that face construction industry employers, including OSHA inspections, prevailing wage complaints, employee benefit plan issues, classification of workers as employees or independent contractors, and more. We are also well prepared to help negotiate a collective bargaining agreement, administer an existing collective bargaining agreement, arbitrate a grievance, or work to maintain a union-free workplace.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Government

Government employers frequently have to play by a different set of rules than private sector employers. Few labor and employment firms have the breadth and depth of experience of our attorneys in representing employers in the public sector.

The reality is that some laws that apply to private employers have no application to public employers. Conversely, there are many laws that apply only to public sector employers, including civil service laws, Loudermill due process obligations, and an entirely different collective bargaining law than the one that governs most private sector employers.

We have represented virtually every form of local government entity in Ohio, including:

  • Municipalities
  • Townships
  • Villages
  • Counties
  • School Districts
  • Transit Authorities
  • State Universities
  • Joint Fire Districts
  • Public Libraries
From special wage and hour laws, like compensatory time, to dealing with Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board and State Personnel Board of Review, we have extensive experience handling the vast array of public sector labor and employment issues.

While unions represent an ever-shrinking percentage of the private sector workforce, labor unions are alive and well in the public sector in Ohio. Public employers have been under tremendous financial pressure in recent years. We are adept at navigating the negotiation process, including mediation, fact-finding, and conciliation, in order to help public employers achieve cost-effective settlement of their labor agreements. We are also focused on assuring that public employers retain or recapture the right to effectively manage their workforce, which is especially critical when budgets are tight.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Healthcare

We have vast experience dealing with healthcare employers, from large hospitals to nursing care campuses to solo practitioners. We develop and implement employment agreements and independent contractor agreements. We also proactively work with healthcare employers to avoid wage and hour pitfalls that are often associated with the scheduling systems common to this industry. In addition, our experience with negotiating collective bargaining agreements, as well as assisting non-unionized employers maintain their union free status, provides great value to our healthcare clients.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Hospitality

Employers in the hospitality industry are often faced with a unique set of labor and employment challenges, especially when high turnover and less skilled labor create a high volume of hiring and firing activity. We also develop policies to minimize claims of harassment or discrimination, and investigate complaints made pursuant to such policies. If such claims do arise, however, we are well-equipped to defend against them. We help hospitality employers properly apply a tip credit to employees’ wages, where appropriate, and to deal with other wage and hour issues.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

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Manufacturing & Distribution

For manufacturing and distribution employers, safety and efficiency are critical. We assist these employers maintain their focus on their primary objectives by providing assistance with any labor and employment issues they may have. For example, we can help develop leave management policies and procedures to reduce disruption to the manufacturing or distribution process. We also have the experience to deal with any safety, workers’ compensation or OSHA issues that may arise. We understand that maintaining positive labor relations is an important consideration for these employers, and we develop strategies to do so. For unionized employers, we negotiate contracts that preserve the right to run the business and manage the workforce. When problems arise, we can help respond to grievances and represent the employer in grievance arbitrations.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Non-profit Management

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We provide proactive counseling and assistance to non-profit employers as they strive to accomplish their mission while maintaining compliance with labor and employment laws. We often serve as an external human resources department for non-profit employers that do not have an internal personnel management capability. We help these employers identify areas of risk and develop a strategy to minimize potential liability, such as how to manage employment issues associated with an employee who also volunteers for the organization.

Our experience includes representing non-profit organizations involved in social services, drug, alcohol & mental health agencies, recreation and healthcare non-profits.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

Professional Services

We represent a wide variety of professional services firms, including:

  • Accounting and Financial Services
  • Engineering and Architecture Services
  • Benefits Consulting
  • Technical Services
  • Legal Services
We work closely with professional services employers to develop proactive policies and procedures to deal with common employment challenges they face, including:

  • Leave Management
  • The Distinction between Exempt and Non-exempt Employees
  • Non-competition, Non-disclosure and Non-solicitation Agreements
  • Dispute Resolution Procedures

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.

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Retail

Retail employers typically deal with intense competition and thin profit margins, which places a premium on providing cost-effective, practical labor and employment law advice. We are well positioned to provide such advice.

Retail employers have been a target of countless wage and hour claims both by the Department of Labor and through collective actions filed by private attorneys. In the retail industry, these claims typically involve allegations of failure to pay minimum wage, failure to pay for work performed “off-the-clock,” and improperly classifying workers as exempt and thereby depriving them of overtime compensation. With our experience in dealing with such claims, we are a valuable resource in helping retail employers avoid such wage and hour issues through adoption of sound policies and practices. We can also vigorously but efficiently represent retail employers when wage and hour investigations or lawsuits arise.

Retail employers are in particular need of sound and comprehensive human resources policies and procedures to guide management of their diverse, sometimes high-turnover workforce. We are seldom “reinventing the wheel” when it comes to providing sound employment policies to our clients, so we can assist retail employers in a very cost-effective way.

Retail employers also seem to have more than their fair share of discrimination and retaliation claims, including claims of unlawful workplace harassment based on sex, race, disability, and the like. Along with providing HR policies that can minimize risks in this area, we also provide training to supervisors and managers to empower them to effectively manage their workforce and thereby minimize EEO claims and other employment law issues.

Contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your workplace law issues.