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Marta M. Fernandez is one of JMBM's labor and employment experts. She is a native Angeleno. Fluent in Spanish, she is a partner in JMBM's Labor and Employment Group in Los Angeles, where she has practiced throughout her career. Marta is an active member of JMBM's Lodging & Leisure Group. She regularly presents seminars to the key executives and staff of hotel and restaurant companies. She advises them on critical issues and problems, including two of the hottest issues discussed here, namely, unionization and exposure to class action discrimination claims.

Unions in High Gear.
Marta says, "The hospitality industry is ripe for big unionizing efforts by such unions as Service Employees International Union and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees." As exemplified by the New Otani Hotel labor dispute in LA, unions are becoming very aggressive with very sophisticated and effective tactics.

"The unions will spend millions of dollars to unionize the hospitality industry in the next couple of years," Marta says. Marta and her colleagues are increasingly called upon to advise clients on how to stay union-free or to get to the same place by being union smart." Marta says, "It is all a battle for the hearts, minds and loyalties of a workforce."

Class Action Discrimination Cases Loom.
"Recently, we have seen retail chains become targets of class action lawsuits by aggressive contingency lawyers," says Marta, citing settlements of up to $100 million dollars recently extracted from Publix Supermarkets, Home Depot and Luckys.

Unfortunately, she adds, many see dangerous similarities between the retail chains that have taken the initial onslaught of liability and the hospitality industry, which could be the next target. For instance, both are service industries with largely unskilled workforces in which women and minorities, at first glance, appear to
be channeled into non-management positions and job categories. "You may be vulnerable to these attacks in hospitality job postings, hours assignments and promotions of women and minorities," Marta warns her hotel and restaurant clients. Her advice to hospitality executives? "Let us help you review your practices, procedures, and documentation to avoid or defeat these devastating claims!"

Management Representation.
Marta has earned the reputation of an aggressive management labor lawyer through her many years of experience in advising management on all aspects of labor and employment law, with a significant focus on hotels, restaurants and resorts.

She has represented clients in labor strikes and negotiations, work stoppages, trials before the National Labor Relations Board and federal and state employment litigation. She has successfully obtained injunctions against strikers, pickets and boycotters during very contentious labor disputes. Marta likes the "proactive" approach. Proper planning and documentation can avoid many serious problems, she counsels.
 
 

JMBM is a full-service, business law firm of more than 140 attorneys with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco and with an independent network of over 1,600 lawyers in more than 75 cities world-wide. We have been involved in hundreds of transactions spanning the globe and representing over $12 billion in total sales, financings, and acquisitions of lodging and leisure properties and companies. We handle: financing, acquisition, sale, bankruptcy, ownership structure and dispute issues, securities, litigation, mergers and acquisitions of companies, union and employment matters, employee benefits, repositionings, management of franchise matters, recreational use agreements, trademarks, litigation of any sort, insurance claim, disaster, timeshare and vacation ownership, tax, foreclosure, and virtually every other challenge.