Kenneth F. Sparks

Kenneth Sparks guides large nationwide companies and regional employers across a broad range of industries, in complex labor law and litigation matters, with a particular focus on healthcare organizations and logistics.

Helping companies manage their relationships with employees and unions, Ken advises employers on how to respond when workers seek to organize, negotiates labor contracts and handles complex disputes growing out of strikes, picketing and collective bargaining.

As Chair of the firm’s Traditional Labor group, Ken not only helps employers navigate union organizing campaigns and collective bargaining negotiations, but he also guides them through challenges related to unfair labor practices, injunctions, secondary boycotts and other complicated labor litigation. On the employment side, Ken advises on how to prevent and defend against discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and noncompete disputes. 

Ken’s 30 years of experience in labor relations and employment litigation have given him a practical understanding of and ability to manage legal responses to nationwide strikes, secondary boycotts and union campaigns while balancing the legal, business and public relations challenges involved. His reasonable and solutions-focused approach, combined with three decades of trial and agency experience before the National Labor Relations Board and federal and state courts, allows him to anticipate how disputes might unfold in litigation and position clients for favorable outcomes early in the process. 

Aiming to protect businesses’ long-term interests, Ken is skilled at navigating tense, high-stakes labor disputes. He focuses on ensuring the employer’s operations continue to run smoothly and on minimizing the impact of negotiations and strikes on business goals. He also provides a steady, experienced perspective on situations that often appear uncertain for business leaders.  

Experience

• Represents several major hospitals, hospital systems, nursing homes and other health care institutions.
• Represented major national trucking company during a nine-year International Brotherhood of Teamsters corporate campaign, organizing drive, national strike and successful decertification effort.
• Defending numerous Gissel Bargaining Orders; see , e.g. Overnite Transportation Co. v. NLRB , 280 F.3d 417 (4th Cir. 2002) (en banc).
• Obtained and enforced numerous strike violence injunctions and obtained related contempt findings.
• Suppressed secondary boycott campaigns through NLRB proceedings, Section 303 damage actions and related arbitrations.
• Negotiated and advised clients regarding collective bargaining and arbitrations, including multiple first-contact negotiations.
• Successfully defended employment discrimination and wrongful termination cases in federal and state courts.