On March 24, 2023 Governor Whitmer signed in to law a bill that restores requirements to pay prevailing wages on state-funded construction in Michigan.  Michigan had repealed the prior prevailing wage law in 2018. But the new law is not simply a reinstitution of what had existed in the past. Instead, the latest prevailing wage law has many new and/or different provisions.  Among the new most notable changes are significantly enhanced fines and enforcements mechanisms, including private lawsuits against employers.   

Please join us for:

1. An overview of the new law and a discussion on how it will impact contractors and financial professionals in the construction industry.
2. A refresher on how prevailing rates are established.
3. How prevailing wage obligations may be met (including fringe benefit credits).
4. What changes contractors might see with the adoption of formal rules in 2024.

KEITH E. EASTLAND

Member | Miller Johnson Attorneys 

Keith Eastland is a Member and past chair of the firm’s Employment and Labor Section. He possesses broad experience handling labor and employment matters for clients ranging from small family-owned businesses to large national and multi-national corporations. His practice focuses on traditional labor law, collective bargaining, union relations, labor/employment litigation, construction, and general employment counseling.

Labor Law / Collective Bargaining

Mr. Eastland has significant experience working on complex collective bargaining traditional labor law, union-management relation issues. He has assisted clients in purchasing and selling businesses in a unionized environment, and has successfully navigated clients through many difficult labor law issues associated with major business transactions, such as plant acquisitions, closings, re-organizations, or consolidations. He also routinely helped clients through difficult collective bargaining and union relations matters, including strikes, lockouts, and NLRB elections.

Mr. Eastland routinely litigates labor matters before the National Labor Relations Board, the federal courts and the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. He has a significant arbitration and union-management counseling practice. He serves as a member of the ABA’s Committee on Practice and Procedure Under the National Labor Relations Act and frequently writes and presents on important labor law topics. He also serves as a contributing editor for two of the most prominent national authorities on federal labor law: The Developing Labor Law and How to Take a Case Before the NLRB.

Litigation

As a former Naval Officer and federal court law clerk, Mr. Eastland has always enjoyed litigation. He has a strong trial and appellate litigation practice, successfully handling employment and labor law cases for Miller Johnson clients in state and federal trial courts across the country, including in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Alabama. Keith has also successfully argued multiple cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth and D.C. Circuits. Types of cases that Mr. Eastland routinely handles include: discrimination claims, whistleblower actions, wage and hour lawsuits, labor law cases, employment-related tort claims, as well as constitutional and other civil rights actions. Mr. Eastland’s litigation philosophy is simple: pursue our client’s interests aggressively with passion and excellence, but always in the most professional manner and always keeping in mind the client’s ultimate goal which is to solve a particular problem or issue.

Construction

Mr. Eastland has developed specific expertise in the labor and employment needs of both union and non-union construction employers. He has counseled and assisted large and small contractors through difficult issues such as strikes, bannering, picketing, union organizing, NLRB matters, and prevailing wage issues. He is an active member of the Associated Builders and Contractors throughout Michigan.

Professional Affiliations and Honors

Mr. Eastland belongs to the American Bar Association, State Bar of Michigan, the Grand Rapids Bar Association, the ABA Committee on Practice and Procedure Under the National Labor Relations Act, the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Michigan Manufacturers Association, the Grand Rapids Human Resources Group, and the Society of Human Resource Management.

For 2020, Mr. Eastland was listed in the “Best Lawyers in America®” for Employment Law - Management.

Education and Background

Mr. Eastland received his law degree, summa cum laude, in 2003 from the University of Notre Dame and his undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Notre Dame in 1996.

Before joining Miller Johnson, Mr. Eastland served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy and as a federal law clerk to the Honorable Robert H. Cleland, United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.

He is admitted to practice in all Michigan state and federal courts, the United States Supreme Court and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the District of Columbia.