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Politics & Government

City Employees' Salary Negotiator Sues Former Boss

Consultants for Arcadia employee unions face off in a legal battle as salary contract negotiations approach a June 30 deadline.

A city salary negotiator filed a lawsuit earlier this year connected to his work on behalf of Arcadia public employee associations.

Wendell Phillips filed suit against Robin Nahin and her company City Employees Associates, in March, contending she pressured him to "roll over" for Arcadia city management's offers at the negotiating table.

Long Beach-based CEA currently represents the Arcadia City Employees and Public Works associations, as well as a number of other public employee unions in cities throughout Southern California.

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According to plaintiffs and the president of the , Nahin's negotiating style and business plan conflict with the interests of city workers.

Phillips—who consults for the APCEA and, until his break with Nahin, did work for the City Employees and Public Works associations—accused Nahin of choosing a "path of least resistance" as her approach to salary negotiations in order to minimize company time spent on clients.

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"CEA's position was, 'We never disagree with your city's administration,' and that makes no sense," said Phillips. "Labor relations [don't] have to be unfriendly, but it is by nature adversarial."

Nahin questioned Phillips' motivations for taking legal action.

"My office retained Wendell Phillips' law firm for about a year and a half to help us to do some work for our clients, ... but we had huge differences in terms of the philosophy of labor relations," said Nahin. "Those differences became so extreme that we stopped working with him.

"His attitude toward labor relations is much more aggressive than ours," Nahin continued. "The mission statement of our office is to support and promote cooperative labor relations between public employees and their management whenever possible."

A lawsuit document filed with the state Superior Court in Los Angeles County lists a number of grievances, including Nahin's alleged use of independent contractors in the capacity of full-time workers.

"Legitimate employers and state taxpayers are harmed by business operators using untaxed independent contractors as employee labor," said co-plaintiff Ralph Royds, who did collective bargaining and disciplinary representation for CEA clients in cities that include South Pasadena, Culver City and Torrance. "Ask ... any recognized local union and see if they use independent contractors to deliver their core services. They can't and don't because they use employee labor and pay the associated taxes and insurance for it."

Lowball pricing is the key to CEA's business model, according to the plaintiffs.

"Ask [the Service Employees International Union] if they hire attorneys as business representatives and to provide legal advice to union members for the low, low price of $14 to $18 a month per member," said Royds. "SEIU, according to Nahin, has been decertified as the union of record in quite a few cities by successful CEA campaigns to take their clients by offering the same or better labor representation and legal advice for far less than SEIU could. That was her pitch."

"There is no such campaign," said Nahin. "Everybody charges less than SEIU. Our fee is about a third of what the big unions cost, but we don't have any campaign."

Phillips, though, called CEA "the Wal-Mart of labor relations."

"There will always be people that no matter what kind of service they get, as long as the price is low enough, that's where they're going to go," he said. "Well, there isn't anybody out there lower priced than [Nahin]. She keeps the price low ... by not providing the kind of service that I would want if I was contracting with a labor relations consultant."

Phillips recalled considering a possible new client with Nahin. After researching the employee group, he recommended $20 per member per month.

"She said 'they'll never pay that,' and I said well, if you take it for much less than that, you're going to be losing money. She said 'oh no, I'll lowball them,'" according to Phillips, who noted that three weeks later Nahin signed the new client for $7 per member a month.

"You cannot service those people for $7 a member a month," Phillips said. "She gets all these contracts up at once, she starts putting pressure on the people who work for her—'you've got to settle, got to get a deal, you've got to get out of there because I've got to send you over here.'"

Nahin denied currently having a client for $7 per member but acknowledged formerly representing a 1,000-member association for that amount. Phillips claimed the $7 per member association to which he referred was about 100 members.

"[Royds and Phillips], who took some of our clients, took them for the exact same rate we were charging," Nahin said. "So although they're accusing us of not charging high enough rates, which is a silly part of their threatened lawsuit, they're charging the exact same amount we do. It's a specious argument—the fact that a service charges different money from a union is irrelevant.

"I don't know why this should hold any interest to the citizens of Arcadia," Nahin said. "[Phillips] is simply trying to bring himself some publicity."

Judith L. Cook is president of the Arcadia Police Civilian Employees Association, which Nahin represented until last September. Feeling lost in the fray of the more than 100-member ACEA, civilian Police Department employees started their own union.

"From what I understand [ACEA members] voted not to accept the proposal from the city last year and through whatever Robin did, they all of a sudden decided to roll over and accept the city's proposal," Cook said. "There are some very angry people who don't understand why."

ACEA President Shelly Polifka declined to comment in depth on the lawsuit or employee contract talks with the city but did say the suit is "not having any effect on us."

Anthony Pulido, Arcadia Public Works Employees Association president, was also tight-lipped and claimed he was unaware of the lawsuit against his contract negotiation consultant.

A case management conference is scheduled for July 11, said the plantiffs' attorney Derek Anderson, who was "hopeful ... the court will issue a trial and related dates."

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