Call them the “King” of union-busting.
National union-avoidance law firms such as Littler Mendelson, Jackson Lewis, Ogletree, Deakins and Fisher Phillips justifiably receive the lion’s share of criticism for their aggressive anti-union tactics. But a medley of regional union-avoidance law firms operate with similar ruthlessness, largely escaping the public eye. Bond, Schoeneck and King Attorneys is one of those law firms.
With more than 100 attorneys specializing in labor and employment law and a dozen offices across the Northeast, the firm has spent decades helping employers fight union campaigns, from colleges and municipalities to major private employers. Bond was identified by the Reagan administration in 1982 as one of the country’s major union-busting law firms, and today markets a wide range of union-busting services. These include union vulnerability audits, union-avoidance recommendations, anti-union communication campaigns and strike-breaking.
Employers with anti-union campaigns handled by Bond have used anti-union letters, flyers and closed-door meetings with such intensity that they have sparked community-wide efforts to pressure employers to terminate the law firm. Once lamenting a legal ruling because it “may offer greater protections for employees,” Bond has a long history of pioneering or championing aggressive union-busting tactics. For example, it has suggested that employers use lockouts and consider refusing to cooperate with a new regulatory policy, and it purportedly set a precedent for obtaining restraining orders against strikers.
Background
Bond, Schoeneck and King was founded in Syracuse in 1897. The firm positions itself as a “formidable resource” for employers navigating labor disputes and boasts “an enviable roster” of clients across the country, including universities, municipalities and large private employers.
Amid a wave of organizing in higher education, Bond has become a particularly familiar presence in university union-busting in the Northeast. In recent years, the firm has represented institutions such as Sarah Lawrence College, Ithaca College and Utica University during organizing drives and collective bargaining.
As of 2017, the most recent year data was available, billing rates for partners at Bond ranged from $380-$400/hour (about $517–$545/hour when adjusted for inflation today), according to an ALM Intelligence report.
The firm reported $160.84 million in revenue in 2025, a 6.4% increase over the previous year. Notably, about a third of the firm’s 300 attorneys focus on labor and employment law.
Bond’s early clients included General Electric, Syracuse University, Syracuse China, Pass & Seymour, Syracuse Newspapers and Lincoln National Bank & Trust Co. which became “an anchor client” and later joined Chase Manhattan Bank.
As of October 2025, its “representative client list” featured a few dozen companies including Geico, National Grid, Babcock and Wilcox and The Buffalo News.
Bond has continued to expand in recent decades through mergers, acquisitions and geographic growth.
Anti-union “do’s and don’ts”
Bond describes its labor and employment practice as offering a “comprehensive view of the union organizing landscape” to employers. Attorneys also represent employers in National Labor Relations Board elections and disputes, advise on collective bargaining, respond to strikes, and handle grievance arbitration. Other management-side labor relations services include:
- Union vulnerability analyses
- Union-avoidance recommendations
- Advising on “campaign fundamentals,” including which workers may be eligible to unionize
- Assistance managing “effective information campaign[s] to lawfully communicate with your employees.”
- Review of employee handbooks for policies that could be considered unlawful.
Bond offers training on topics such as recognizing union organizing activity, supervisor “do’s and don’ts,” and navigating secret ballot elections and collective bargaining.
In addition to direct legal representation and training, Bond hosts ongoing programming for employers, including weekly webinars — with titles including “Proposed DOL Rule Change Would Require Greater Employer Disclosure” — blog posts and video content. The firm holds “periodic breakfast briefings” and an annual daylong seminar across more than 10 locations, offering sessions on a range of employment law topics and strategies for managing workplace issues.
A “leading union-busting law firm”
Bond has been referred to as one of the nation’s “leading union-busting law firms,” a reputation that goes back decades.
A 1982 memorandum prepared for the Reagan administration included Bond on a list of major firms that regularly engaged in anti-union and union-busting activity. The memo was drafted amid Republican concerns about AFL-CIO organizing and political activity during the 1982 midterm elections, coming just one year after Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in one of the most significant anti-union actions in modern U.S. history.
Bond has maintained its reputation as a big-time union-buster well into the 21st century. An organizer involved in a 2005 Legal Aid Bureau of Attorneys Union campaign described Bond as a “familiar union-busting law firm.”
The firm has also highlighted its own role in high-stakes labor disputes. In 2023, Bond wrote that it “successfully defended” SkyHop, a national airline crew transportation service, against an initial Teamsters organizing drive. It boasted of “setting a precedent for combating disruptive labor tactics” by securing a temporary restraining order prohibiting strikers from blocking SkyHop vans as evidence of its “strategic experience in high-stakes labor disputes,” though the union later succeeded in a second election.
A history of aggressive tactics
Bond’s work combating organizing campaigns has drawn criticism for aggressive tactics. At Sarah Lawrence College, Bond represented the administration during a 2014 union drive among maintenance workers, where “the usual tricks” reportedly followed, including letters, flyers, and closed-door meetings aimed at discouraging union support. Filmmaker Michael Moore later demanded the university fire Bond amid a campus mobilization of students and faculty calling on the university to drop the firm.
During negotiations, management’s attorney — presumably a Bond lawyer — “did everything in his power to obstruct the union,” including rejecting proposed language on disability benefits that had been taken from the college’s own website.
Bond attorneys have also publicly discussed a range of hardline strategies in labor disputes. In 2016, attorney Peter A. Jones suggested that universities should consider using lockouts against faculty unions after a large faculty lockout at Long Island University. In another instance, Bond advised employers to consider refusing to comply with a new policy from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by barring union representatives from participating in OSHA “walkaround” safety inspections – even though, by Bond’s own account, the policy was “written with the intent of allowing union representatives to participate in OSHA inspections.”
Bond has also represented employers in labor disputes before the National Labor Relations Board and in federal court across a range of industries.
In one case, the firm successfully challenged a bargaining order issued against Kinney Drugs, Inc. In another, a federal appeals court rejected arguments advanced by Bond on behalf of Troutbrook Co., noting that the firm had failed to cite supporting precedent and dismissing claims that the hotel’s financial uncertainty amid Covid-19 justified its refusal to bargain.
Bond has also aggressively represented municipalities and other public-sector clients. It represented the City of Long Beach against the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Association in a failed bid to refuse to bargain over the procedure for terminating injured firefighters who are unable to return to work after a year. The firm also represented NYCBUS in a duty-of-fair-representation case against ATU Local 1811, which was later withdrawn.
In Watertown, Massachusetts, Bond sought to become the city’s permanent outside counsel after previously representing it in “contentious negotiations” with its firefighters union and defending it against discrimination claims. Bond sought to replace Harris Beach, which had charged $290/hour for partners.
In notes published by the New York Employment Letter, the firm has repeatedly criticized NLRB rulings under the Biden administration that strengthened workers’ rights to unionize. In one article, Bond attorneys described a Washington, D.C. court ruling allowing an employer to refuse reinstatement to striking workers as a “good reminder” that not all strike activity is protected. In another, the firm wrote that “unfortunately,” while employers seek to “prevent employees from misbehaving in front of customers,” employees don’t have to “be on their best behavior” when exercising their NLRA rights. It also called a 2014 NLRB decision protecting a Starbucks worker “problematic for employers” because it “may offer greater protections for employees under the NLRA.”
Academia as a battleground
Bond has represented a wide range of higher education institutions. In addition to Sarah Lawrence College, the firm has worked with colleges including Ithaca College, Marist College, Sage Colleges, the University of Rochester, Utica University, and Cayuga Community College, often in contentious organizing campaigns or collective bargaining negotiations.
The firm advised Ithaca College during its anti-union campaign against part-time faculty in 2015, including developing an informational website, prompting professors to question “why the college is spending $600–$1,000 an hour” on Bond and whether that money could be better spent on student counseling services or faculty wages.
Bond represented Marist College in a 2023 unfair labor practice case against the International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America, claiming the union was bargaining in bad faith. At Sage Colleges, the Capital District Area Labor Federation launched a letter-writing campaign condemning the school for “squander[ing]” resources by hiring Bond during prolonged negotiations with service workers. At Cayuga Community College, Bond unsuccessfully challenged a bargaining unit for adjunct faculty. And at Fairfield University, Bond was brought in during stalled contract negotiations following the death of a subcontractor.
Bond’s work with universities also extends beyond traditional labor disputes. The firm was one of four law firms hired by the University of Kansas as part of a legal team that spent more than $10 million defending the school in an NCAA infractions case. The firm maintains a collegiate sports practice group that advises universities on NCAA compliance, enforcement investigations and infractions proceedings.
Ties to conservative labor policy and the NLRB
Bond attorneys and alumni have played roles in shaping national labor policy and debate, particularly through connections to the National Labor Relations Board.
Alice Stock, a counsel at the firm, served as deputy general counsel of the NLRB from 2019 to 2021. She later criticized the Biden administration’s NLRB before Congress for policies she said favored unions (claiming they “trampled” the rights of workers and employers) and wrote in Journal of Labor and Employment Law that the PRO Act was anti-worker.
Peter Robb, a former NLRB general counsel under President Donald Trump, joined Bond in 2021. Robb previously served as lead counsel to Reagan during the 1981 air traffic controllers strike.
Bond attorneys have also remained active in employer-side networks. Attorney Daniel Forsyth has provided regular legal updates to the National Human Resources Association, drawing on experience in more than 30 organizing campaigns and activities including strike preparation, salting, deauthorization, and lockouts.
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