Steven Porzio

Steven Porzio is a senior counsel in the Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of the Labor-Management Relations Group. Steve assists both unionized and union-free clients with a full-range of labor and employee relations matters. He represents employers in contract negotiations, arbitrations, and representation and unfair labor practice cases before the National Labor Relations Board.

Steve has experience conducting vulnerability assessments and providing management training in union and litigation avoidance, leave management, wage and hour, and hiring and firing practices. He provides strategic and legal advice in certification and decertification elections, union organizing drives, corporate campaigns, picketing, and union contract campaigns. Steve has advised employers in a number of different industries in successful efforts against unions in election and corporate campaigns.

Firm/Organization: Proskauer Rose LLP

Blogs: Labor Relations Update

Latest Articles

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Proposes Rule to Settle Once and For All: Student Teaching and Research Assistants Are Not “Employees”

By Paul Salvatore, Steven Porzio & Laura Franks

September 20, 2019

As anticipated, today the National Labor Relations Board published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) proposing a regulation which would establish that students at private colleges and universities who perform any services related to their studies for compensation, including teaching and research, are not “employees” within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. The proposed rule would bring certainty to the student employee-status issue, which the Board oscillated on three times…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Tips Scales in Favor of Employers When Drawing Distinctions Between Claims of “Inability to Pay” Versus “Competitive Disadvantage,” and “Surface” Versus “Hard” Bargaining

By Steven Porzio & Laura Franks

September 18, 2019

In recent weeks, the National Labor Relations Board has issued several employer-friendly decisions, and its September 13 decision in Arlington Metals Corp., 368 NLRB No. 74 (2019) was no exception. In Arlington Metals, the Board considered: (1) whether an employer’s statements during bargaining in response to a union’s economic proposals amounted to an asserted “inability to pay,” which would trigger an obligation to provide the union with access to the company’s financial information; (2) whether…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Issues “Epic” Decision Concerning the Intersection of Mandatory Arbitration Agreements and NLRA Section 7 Rights

By Mark Theodore, Michael Lebowich, Steven Porzio, Joshua Fox & Laura Franks

August 16, 2019

On August 14, 2019, the NLRB issued its first decision addressing employer conduct related to mandatory arbitration agreements and Section 7 activity since the Supreme Court decided Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, 584 U.S. __, 138 S.Ct. 1612 (2018). In Epic Systems (discussed more fully here), the Supreme Court held that agreements between employers and employees which include mandatory arbitration clauses and waivers of class and collective action rights do not violate the NLRA,…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Finds Employer Lawfully Terminated “Known” Union Supporter Despite Finding Its Justification Was Pretextual

By Steven Porzio & Laura Franks

August 10, 2019

In a 2-1 decision issued on August 2, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) in Electrolux Home Products, Inc., 368 NLRB No. 34 (2019) reversed an Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) decision, and held that Electrolux’s discharge of a “known” union supporter employee did not violate the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “Act”), notwithstanding the Board finding that Electrolux’s stated justification for the discharge was pretextual. Background The discharged employee at issue in…

Labor Relations Update

Recent ALJ Decision Provides Important Nuance Regarding Workplace No Recording Rules

By Steven Porzio

July 17, 2019

In late 2017, the NLRB in Boeing Company, 365 NLRB No. 154 (2017), established a new three category system for classifying various employer policies. The new system was designed to balance a “work rule’s negative impact on employees’ ability to exercise their Section 7 rights and the rule’s connection to employers’ right to maintain discipline and productivity in their workplace.” This balancing analyzes each policy on a case-by-case basis. In Boeing, the NLRB determined…

Labor Relations Update

D.C. Circuit Weighs In On NLRB Test For Adjunct Faculty Unionization

By Paul Salvatore, Steven Porzio, David Bayer & Laura Franks

March 21, 2019

Colleges and universities should take note of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s recent decision in University of Southern California v. National Labor Relations Board, Case No. 17-1149 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 12, 2019) addressing whether non-tenure track faculty at universities are “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), giving them the right to form a union, or whether they are “managers” and thus exempt from coverage under the NLRA. In its decision,…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Rules That Graduate Students Are Employees

By Paul Salvatore, Edward Brill, Bernard M. Plum & Steven Porzio

August 23, 2016

Earlier today, the National Labor Relations Board (“the Board”) issued its long awaited decision in Columbia University. Not surprisingly, the Board, in a 3-1 decision, overturned 12 years of precedent by ruling that “student assistants” (including assistants engaged in research funded by external grants) who have a “common law” employment relationship with their university are employees as defined by the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”), and therefore are entitled to the protections afforded…

Labor Relations Update

In for the Long Haul as the Fifth Circuit Upholds NLRB’s “Quickie” Election Rule

By Michael Lebowich & Steven Porzio

June 16, 2016

Last April, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) implemented it’s new expedited union representation procedures. On June 10, 2016, in Associated Builders and Contrs. Of Tex v. NLRB, 15-cv-50487 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 10552 (5th Cir. June 10, 2016) the Fifth Circuit upheld the new procedures, commonly called “quickie” election rules – – rejecting the Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas’ (“ABC”)) arguments that the rule exceeded the Board’s authority under the National Labor…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Requests Amicus Briefs in Two Significant Cases

By Michael Lebowich & Steven Porzio

March 4, 2016

On Friday, February 19, 2016, the National Labor Relations Board invited interested individuals and organizations to file amicus briefs on two important legal issues where the Board is considering overturning existing precedent. In one case, King Soopers, Inc., NLRB, No. 27-CA-129598 (2/19/16), the NLRB’s General Counsel has asked the Board to change its long-standing practice of awarding discriminatees with expenses incurred when seeking new employment only when the discriminatee received interim earnings. Currently, the NLRB…

Labor Relations Update

NLRB Issues Union Friendly Decision Regarding Applicability of Quickie Rules: When 94% Just Ain’t Enough

By Michael Lebowich & Steven Porzio

October 26, 2015

With that the NLRB’s quickie election rules going into effect in April 2015, we are just now starting to see the Board decide cases applying the new rules. In Danbury Hospital, Case 01-RC-153086, the Regional Director for Region 1 on October 16, 2015, lent his interpretation to one of the new requirements of the quickie election rules, namely the employer’s obligation to provide employees’ personal phone number and personal email address if such data was…

Steven Porzio

NLRB Proposes Rule to Settle Once and For All: Student Teaching and Research Assistants Are Not “Employees”

NLRB Tips Scales in Favor of Employers When Drawing Distinctions Between Claims of “Inability to Pay” Versus “Competitive Disadvantage,” and “Surface” Versus “Hard” Bargaining

NLRB Issues “Epic” Decision Concerning the Intersection of Mandatory Arbitration Agreements and NLRA Section 7 Rights

NLRB Finds Employer Lawfully Terminated “Known” Union Supporter Despite Finding Its Justification Was Pretextual

Recent ALJ Decision Provides Important Nuance Regarding Workplace No Recording Rules

D.C. Circuit Weighs In On NLRB Test For Adjunct Faculty Unionization

NLRB Rules That Graduate Students Are Employees

In for the Long Haul as the Fifth Circuit Upholds NLRB’s “Quickie” Election Rule

NLRB Requests Amicus Briefs in Two Significant Cases

NLRB Issues Union Friendly Decision Regarding Applicability of Quickie Rules: When 94% Just Ain’t Enough

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