Vice President, Labor Relations

The Vice President, Labor Relations is responsible for developing and executing the organization's labor relations strategy, ensuring productive relationships with labor unions, maintaining compliance with labor laws and collective bargaining agreements, and supporting organizational objectives through effective workforce relations. This executive serves as one of the principal advisors to senior leadership on labor matters and leads collective bargaining, contract administration, grievance resolution, labor strategy, and dispute management activities in a highly complex, multi-sector union environment.

This role leads a team of geographically dispersed Labor Relations Directors across multiple lines of business, establishing team priorities and engaging directly in bargaining and negotiations whenever necessary. The Vice President proactively advises operations leadership and HR partners on bargaining trends, marketplace trends, legal and regulatory changes, and labor relations analytics, as well as the workforce implications of business decisions, organizational change, enterprise growth, and performance improvement priorities. Employee engagement and development are critical to success in this role.

The Vice President is also responsible for cultivating relationships with key International/National and local union leadership, coordinating the Company's response to union organizing activity — including traditional campaigns and card check neutrality (CCN) — and partnering with HR, Operations, Legal, Finance, and Compliance to minimize labor disruption, enhance workforce engagement, and support organizational transformation. In addition, this leader will be expected to strengthen team capability, build bench depth, and assess organizational design so the labor relations function is structured to support current complexity and future business needs.

This position reports to the Senior Vice President, Labor Relations and is based in Philadelphia at Aramark's headquarters, with travel up to 30% as needed.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop and implement enterprise-wide labor relations strategies aligned with organizational goals. 
• Manage and provide guidance to Labor Relations Directors, including assigning matters, supporting negotiations, establishing best practices, and ensuring consistent application of labor contract provisions across the organization. 
• Build and maintain relationships with International, national, regional, and local union leadership; represent the organization in meetings with labor organizations, government agencies, and industry groups. 
• Oversee collective bargaining agreement administration, grievance handling, arbitrations, and unfair labor practice charges; monitor trends and recommend corrective actions. 
• Advise line of business leadership regarding labor risks, workforce planning, organizational changes, and bargaining strategies. 
• Serve as a trusted advisor to Aramark’s business unit presidents on labor matters that affect growth opportunities, operational performance, client retention, and improvement plans in key accounts. 
• Partner with business, operations, and HR leaders to align labor strategy with service delivery, and workforce stability. 
• Coordinate strike preparedness, contingency planning, and crisis management related to labor disputes and work stoppages. 
• Partner with HR, Operations, Legal, Finance, Total Rewards, and Compliance to support organizational initiatives, restructurings, mergers, and workforce transformations, including labor due diligence and post-close integration. 
• Ensure compliance with applicable federal, state, and local labor laws and regulations; disseminate and consult on regulatory requirements. 
• Coach and train senior leaders and managers on labor relations matters, including Positive Employee Relations (PER) and Managing in a Unionized Environment (MUE). 
• Utilize data, economic analyses, current and emerging labor relations climate and benchmarking to inform bargaining strategies and workforce planning decisions. 
• Works with external vendors to develop and deliver labor relations related services on-time and within budget. 
• Perform other duties as assigned. 
• Provide strategic counsel on union organizing activity, NLRB matters, labor disruption risk, and workforce relations issues that may affect enterprise performance or reputation. 
• Evaluate and enhance the structure, role clarity, and operating model of the labor relations function to ensure appropriate organizational design, capability deployment, and scalability. 

People Leadership

The Vice President, Labor Relations must be a strong people leader who can build followership, develop talent, and elevate the capability of the function over time. This includes leading and coaching a geographically dispersed team, setting clear expectations, strengthening succession depth, and creating a high-performing, collaborative culture across the labor relations organization. 

The role also requires sound organizational design judgment. The successful candidate should be able to assess whether the labor relations team is optimally structured, clarify decision rights and responsibilities, align talent to business needs, and recommend changes that improve effectiveness, consistency, and long-term scalability. 

Qualifications

Educational Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Labor Relations, Industrial Relations, Business Administration, Law, or a related field required. 

• Master's degree, Juris Doctor (JD), or advanced degree preferred. 

Preferred Experience

• 8+ years of progressive labor relations or related experience, ideally within a large, complex, multi-site and highly unionized environment. 

• Experience leading teams and developing people, and building organizational capability. 

• Experience leading collective bargaining negotiations. 

• Experience managing labor relations in a highly unionized environment with meaningful scale and stakeholder complexity. 

• Experience advising leadership on labor strategy and workforce relations, enterprise risk, organizational change, and performance improvement. 

• Experience partnering across HR, Legal, Operations, Finance, and executive leadership on labor-related business decisions, transformations, and workforce issues. 

• Experience evaluating team structure, organizational effectiveness, and role design within a labor relations or related function. 

• Experience in food service, hospitality, facilities management, transportation, healthcare, or another labor-intensive sector is preferred. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Extensive knowledge of labor and employment laws. 

• Expertise in collective bargaining, grievance handling, arbitration, and contract administration, and labor dispute management. 

• Strong executive presence and negotiation skills, sound judgment, and the ability to influence senior leaders, union representatives, and cross-functional stakeholders. 

• Exceptional communication and relationship management capabilities. 

• Proven ability to influence senior leaders and union representatives. 

• Demonstrated ability to serve as a trusted partner to Aramark’s business unit presidents on labor matters tied to business growth, operating performance, key account health, and workforce strategy. 

• Strategic thinking and business acumen, including the ability to connect labor strategy to workforce planning, operational priorities, and enterprise risk. 

• Strong analytical and financial evaluation skills, including external benchmarking and labor market analysis. 

• Ability to lead in high-pressure and complex labor environments. 

• Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills. 

• Demonstrated people leadership, coaching, and talent assessment capability. 

• Strong organizational design and change management capability, including the ability to align structure, talent, and processes with business need. 

• Intermediate level or better proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.