Thomas Giotto

Thomas S. Giotto is co-chair of the firm’s Labor & Employment Department and concentrates his practice on representing management in many aspects of labor, employment, and employment-related litigation.

Tom’s traditional labor practice includes representing employers during union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining, and grievance arbitrations.

He has represented employers in litigation involving race, sex, sexual harassment, age and disability discrimination, and against claims alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, COBRA, and wrongful discharge and related common law claims.

Tom has experience speaking on a range of employment law topics. Tom has been named one of the top labor law attorneys since 2006 in Chambers USA. Tom received his bachelor’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University and he earned his law degree from Duquesne University School of Law.

EXPERIENCE :

• Represent employers in negotiations throughout the country in manufacturing, refining, chemical, health care, distribution, mining, higher education, print media, and sporting facilities.
• Negotiated a consumer-directed health plan as part of the single corporate health plan for all union-represented employees covered by numerous collective bargaining agreements.
• Restructured employer-related costs by negotiating the termination or freezing of retiree medical benefits and defined benefit pension plans and wage rates and job consolidations for manufacturing, health care, chemical, mining, public utility, and automotive parts supply clients.
• Completed the negotiations of the first collective bargaining agreement for a financially troubled health care employer while the employer unilaterally implemented numerous changes to avoid bankruptcy and avoided a NLRB complaint on all related unfair labor practice charges.
• Negotiated the outsourcing of a health care client’s dietary operations and related effects bargaining agreement for those same employees.
• Defended approximately 50 grievances protesting management’s decision to contract out bargaining unit work, which involved millions of dollars of lost wage opportunity claims for bargaining unit employees.
• Represented a major utility in a series of arbitrations with the IBEW involving contracting out of meter reading work and transfer of bargaining unit work to related entities where there is no union representation.
• Guided a theft of time investigation that resulted in the termination of 12 of 18 department employees and won all but two of the discharge arbitrations. Also defended the company’s decision to contract out the department’s bargaining unit work, as well as numerous related unfair labor practice charges.
• Argued lead operators out of the bargaining unit as statutory supervisors and led employer to an election victory by a 3-1 ratio, thus avoiding the obligation to recognize the union as a bargaining agent.
• Represented a health care employer in multi-bargaining unit petitions involving nurses, service maintenance, skilled maintenance, office/clerical, and technical employees. Handled numerous bargaining unit issues including supervisory status and the appropriate slotting of employees into the appropriate bargaining unit positions.
• Demonstrated the supervisory status of numerous employees prior to representation elections in industries such as acute care, long-term care, manufacturing, and chemical production.
• Defended unfair labor practice charges and avoided NLRB complaint alleging that the employer unlawfully locked out its union-represented employees but continued operations with temporary replacements.
• Obtained defense verdict after a five-day jury trial in United States District Court on race discrimination claims filed against multiple defendants by a former in-house lawyer.
• Obtained a defense verdict after a four-day jury trial in West Virginia State Court in a case alleging race discrimination filed against multiple defendants.

EDUCATION :

• Duquesne University School of Law, J.D., 1983
• Pennsylvania State University, B.A., 1976

BAR ADMISSIONS : Pennsylvania