Trends and Updates in Higher Education Labor Relations

Mr. Victor Blackwell, JD Related Seminars and Products

Executive Director

Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board

Melissa Mlynski Related Seminars and Products

Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources

University of Illinois Springfield

Melissa Mlynski is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), a position she has held since December of 2016.  In this role she oversees all aspects of Human Resources for UIS, including Labor and Employee Relations. She has served as the lead negotiator for the university during bargaining with the union that represents tenured/tenure track faculty as well as negotiating other union contracts on behalf of the university. For ten years, she served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UIS teaching graduate courses in labor and administrative law.  Previously, Ms. Mlynski was the Executive Director of the Illinois Labor Relations Board from June of 2012 through December of 2016.  She has extensive experience representing public employers in collective bargaining, labor arbitrations and cases before the Illinois Labor Relations Board, including more than 10 years as labor relations counsel for the Department of Central Management Services.  Ms. Mlynski also worked in private practice representing public employers in labor and employment law matters.  Ms. Mlynski received her B.A. in English from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and her J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law.   

Steve A. Yokich, JD Related Seminars and Products

Partner

Dowd, Bloch, Bennett, Cervone, Auerbach & Yokich, LLP

Stephen A. Yokich graduated from Northwestern University in 1978 and cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981. He clerked for the Honorable George Edwards, the Chief Judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1981 to 1982. Steve served as the General Counsel for Labor for the Education and Labor Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 1994. He worked as an Associate General Counsel for the International Union, UAW in the UAW’s Washington D.C. office from 1995 to 1998 and held a half-time position with the UAW from 2001-2016. He was a partner at the union-side labor law firm of Cornfield and Feldman before joining the firm in 2015.

Steve represents private and public sector labor unions in cases before state and federal labor relations boards and in state and federal trial and appellate courts. This representation encompasses the enforcement of union contracts and the defense of cases involving allegations of discrimination, breach of the duty of fair representation and state law torts. He represents unions in cases with the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration and with State occupational safety and health agencies. He also represents individuals and classes of individuals in suits under the civil rights acts, in suits involving the wage and hour laws and in suits involving retiree health and pension benefits.