Sr Director, Labor & Employee Relations

Employee Type:
Full time

Location:
IL Oak Brook

Job Type:
Human Resources General

Job Posting Title:
Sr Director, Labor & Employee Relations
About Us:
TreeHouse Foods is a leading manufacturer of private label packaged foods and beverages, operating a network of over 20 production facilities and several corporate offices across the United States and Canada. At TreeHouse Foods, our commitment to excellence extends beyond our products and revolves around our people. We are investing in talent and creating a performance-based culture where employees can do their best work and develop their careers, directly impacting our mission to make high quality, affordable food for our customers, communities, and families. We hope you will consider joining the team and being part of our future.

Named one of America's Best Large Employers by Forbes Magazine, we are proud to live by a strong set of values and strive to "Engage and Delight - One Customer at a Time." Guided by our values-Own It, Commit to Excellence, Be Agile, Speak Up, and Better Together. We are a diverse team driven by integrity, accountability, and a commitment to exceptional results. We embrace change, prioritize continuous learning, and foster collaboration, transparency, and healthy debate. Together, we set each other up for success to achieve enterprise-wide goals.

What You Gain:

• Competitive compensation and benefits program with no waiting period - you're eligible from your first day!
• 401(k) program with 5% employer match and 100% vesting as soon as you enroll.
• Comprehensive paid time off opportunities, including immediate access to four weeks of vacation, five sick days, parental leave and 11 company holidays (including two floating holidays).
• Leaders who are invested in supporting your accelerated career growth, plus paid training, tuition reimbursement and a robust educational platform - DevelopU - with more than 10,000 free courses to support you along the way.
• An inclusive working environment where you can build meaningful work relationships with a diverse group of professionals. Take advantage of opportunities to build on our team-oriented culture, such as joining one of our Employee Resource Groups.
• Access to our wellness and employee assistance programs.

Job Description:
About the Role:
The Senior Director, Labor & Employee Relations (LR/ER), based out of our corporate office in Oak Brook, IL, provides enterprise-wide leadership for the development and execution of a forward-looking labor and employee relations strategy that advances business objectives across TreeHouse Foods' U.S. and Canada manufacturing network.

This role serves as a trusted strategic advisor to the CHRO, HR Leadership Team, Operations, Legal, Finance, Plant Leadership, and site HR leaders on complex workforce, labor, and organizational matters. This position establishes the enterprise vision and governance for labor and employee relations, driving a consistent, proactive approach to collective bargaining, contract administration, grievance and arbitration strategy, union engagement, and positive employee relations across both represented and non-represented workforces.

The role is accountable for shaping labor strategy, mitigating organizational risk, strengthening leadership capability, and fostering a high-performing workplace culture that supports operational excellence, workforce stability, and long-term business success.

Labor and Employee Relations Landscape:

• TreeHouse Foods operates 24 manufacturing sites across the United States and Canada, including 13 sites with collective bargaining agreements and 11 non-union sites.
• Employees are represented by multiple unions across the network, including BCTGM, Teamsters/IBT, UFCW, and Unifor. Approximately 44% of the hourly workforce is covered by a CBA.
• Collective bargaining agreements generally range from 3 to 5 years, creating a recurring need for disciplined negotiation planning, cost/benefit analysis, stakeholder alignment, and implementation follow-through.
• Non-union sites require a consistent, proactive employee relations operating model focused on trust, communication, fair practices, leader capability, and early risk identification.

Role Mandate:

• Create a coherent enterprise LR/ER strategy that replaces fragmented accountability with clear ownership, consistent processes, and measurable outcomes.
• Provide senior-level strategic and tactical support to site HR leaders and plant leadership on CBA administration, labor relations, employee relations, investigations, discipline, positive employee relations, and culture-building.
• Build a practical management operating system for labor and employee relations: playbooks, governance, site readiness assessments, leader training, escalation protocols, and dashboards for risk, activity, and outcomes.
• Partner closely with Operations, Legal, Finance, Total Rewards EHS, and outside counsel to ensure labor and employee relations decisions are legally sound, operationally practical, financially informed, and culturally aligned.

Key Responsibilities:

Collective Bargaining & Labor Strategy

• Serve as first-chair spokesperson in contract negotiations and other dealings with local unions; prepare negotiation strategies, proposals, cost models, communication plans, and implementation plans.
• Develop multi-year CBA strategies that support cost containment, operational flexibility, workforce stability, and constructive labor-management relationships.
• Establish an enterprise CBA calendar and readiness process that tracks expirations, negotiation plans, economics, operational priorities, and stakeholder accountabilities.
• Build and sustain relationships with local union leadership while protecting the company's right to manage and operate the business effectively.
• Lead contingency planning for potential labor disruptions, including strike readiness, operational continuity, communications, security, staffing, customer/service impact, and site-specific response plans.
  

CBA Administration, Grievances & Arbitration

• Advise and counsel site HR managers, plant leaders, and field HR leadership on consistent administration of CBAs, work rules, past practice, discipline, attendance, scheduling, overtime, and other labor practices.
• Lead or oversee grievance management, arbitration preparation, settlement strategy, information requests, ULP/NLRB matters, and labor-related litigation support in partnership with Legal and external counsel.
• Create standard templates and processes for grievance tracking, documentation, investigation quality, case assessment, and escalation.
  

Positive Employee Relations / Union-Free Strategy

• Develop and implement a proactive positive employee relations strategy to support union-free status at non-represented locations.
• Design and deliver leader training on respectful supervision, communication, early issue resolution, policy consistency, employee feedback channels, and legal guardrails for organizing activity.
• Conduct periodic vulnerability assessments at non-union sites, partnering with HR and Operations to identify risk drivers, action plans, and follow-up mechanisms.
• Strengthen site-level practices that build trust, including roundtables, plant communication plans, engagement action-planning, recognition, onboarding, and visible follow-through on employee feedback.
  

Employee Relations, Compliance & Risk Management

• Provide senior-level guidance on complex employee relations issues, investigations, corrective action, policy interpretation, terminations, reductions in force, and workplace conflict in partnership with Legal.
• Partner with Legal and HR leadership to monitor changes in U.S. and Canadian labor and employment law and translate them into practical leader guidance, training, and policy/process updates.
• Ensure labor and employee relations practices are fair, consistent, well-documented, and aligned with TreeHouse values and business objectives.
  

Leadership, Capability Building & Governance

• Build LR/ER capability across plant HR and Operations through playbooks, toolkits, coaching, case reviews, and practical training.
• Establish a regular LR/ER governance cadence with HRLT, Legal, Operations, and site leaders to review bargaining status, open risks, grievances/arbitrations, employee relations trends, and site-level action plans.
• Use data to identify employee relations risk patterns and opportunities, including grievance trends, arbitration outcomes, engagement feedback, turnover, attendance, absenteeism, overtime, and leader capability needs.

Measures of Success:

• CBA negotiations are planned early, aligned cross-functionally, and executed with clear economics, operational outcomes, and communication plans.
• Grievance and arbitration activity is tracked, triaged, and resolved with improved consistency, timeliness, and documentation quality.
• Non-union sites have documented positive employee relations plans, trained leaders, and visible practices that support trust, communication, and fair treatment.
• Site HR and plant leaders report increased confidence in CBA administration, union interactions, employee relations handling, and lawful organizing-response practices.
• HRLT and Operations have transparent visibility to LR/ER risks, priorities, and progress through a practical dashboard and operating cadence.
• Proactively integrate Total Rewards into the bargaining process to influence contract design, ensure cost and compliance alignment, and enable accurate, efficient administration of all negotiated provisions.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• 15 years of progressive experience in human resources, labor relations, employee relations, or labor/employment law; manufacturing, food, CPG, distribution, or multi-site operations experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated first-chair experience leading multiple collective bargaining negotiations, including preparation, bargaining, communications, ratification, implementation, and post-negotiation administration.
  

• Strong working knowledge of U.S. labor and employment law, including the NLRA, NLRB processes, WARN, FLSA, FMLA, employment discrimination/retaliation principles, investigations, discipline, and terminations; Canadian labor relations knowledge preferred.
• Experience managing grievances, arbitrations, union information requests, ULP charges, organizing activity, and outside counsel relationships.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Industrial/Labor Relations, Business, Law, or a related field required; Master's in Industrial/Labor Relations, MBA, or JD preferred.

Leadership Competencies:

• Strategic business partner who understands manufacturing operations, cost drivers, workforce dynamics, and the relationship between people practices and operational performance.
• Credible negotiator and relationship builder who can be firm, practical, respectful, and disciplined at the table and with internal stakeholders.
• Excellent communicator with the ability to translate complex labor and employee relations issues into clear guidance for executives, plant leaders, HR partners, and employees.
• High judgment, discretion, and composure in sensitive, high-stakes, and time-sensitive situations.
• Bias for action, accountability, and practical execution; able to move from strategy to tools, training, routines, and measurable outcomes.
• Strong collaborator across HR, Operations, Legal, Finance, EHS, Total Rewards, and external counsel.

Working Conditions:

• Based at TreeHouse Foods headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
• Travel up to 50% to manufacturing sites and negotiation locations in the United States and Canada; ability to travel to Canada required.
• May require flexibility outside normal business hours to support bargaining, urgent site matters, labor disputes, investigations, or crisis response.

Important Details:

• The anticipated compensation for this position ranges from $198,400.00 - 297,600.00 USD annually. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, shift, travel requirements, sales or revenue-based metrics and business or organizational needs. For certain roles, the successful candidate may be eligible for annual discretionary merit compensation award, bonus and equity pay.

Your TreeHouse Foods Career is Just a Click Away!
Click on the "Apply" button or go directly to www.treehousefoods.com/careers to let us know you're ready to join our team!

At TreeHouse Foods, we embrace diversity and inclusion for innovation and growth. We are committed to building inclusive teams and an equitable workplace for our employees to bring their true selves to work to help us "Engage and Delight - One Customer at a Time". TreeHouse Foods is an Equal Opportunity Employer that prohibits discrimination or harassment of any type. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Applicants who require an accommodation to participate in the job application or hiring process should contact disability-accommodations@treehousefoods.com

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