[Excerpt] Baker & McKenzie’s Global Employment Practice Group is pleased to present its 56th issue of The Global Employer™ entitled “The Labor Relations and Collective Agreements Issue.” In this issue you will find the first report from our Future of Work Series. Labor Relations Report - Brand Attack: How to avoid becoming the target of a corporate campaign and what actions to take if you do. The Future of Work is a series of client reports based on panel discussions at our Global Employer Forum, a two-day thought leadership conference. During the forum, nearly 70 clients, academics and consultants gathered with our employment partners to discuss pressing workplace topics like talent shortages, data privacy, global mobility assignments, globalization of unions and managing the employment aspects of M&A deals. Rather than the traditional “how to” legal format of most law firm conferences, the Global Employer Forum features panel discussions of in-house counsel and senior-level executives from some of the world’s largest multinational organizations who discussed their personal experiences addressing these challenges and the solutions they have found to overcome them. Following the Labor Relations Report, you will also find information pertaining to the current state of labor relations and union negotiations in Argentina and a general overview of the current state of collective bargaining in Brazil. In Germany, we take a look at some of the numbers behind collective bargaining agreements; and a review of the impacts on labor benefits of the January 2014, Income Tax Law reform in Mexico. From Spain we bring you articles that discuss negotiating with representatives bodies in collective lay-offs and the new role of company level collective bargaining agreements; and from the US, recent efforts by the NLRB as it Targets Successor Issues in US Mergers and Acquisitions.