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NJ State PBA Collective Bargaining
Seminar is the best deal around
The 27th annual NJ State PBA Law Enforcement Collective Bargaining Seminar will take place Feb. 3-5 in Atlantic City. Labor Consultant George O’Brien and the PBA Collective Bargaining
Committee led by Chairman John Cernek have once again put
together an all-star lineup of legal, financial and business gurus who
will cover nearly a dozen of timely and critical topics such as interest
arbitration, grievance arbitration, health benefits, contract negotiations and officers’ rights to fuel this three-day download.
“I don’t think any other labor organization in New Jersey provides
this type of opportunity for its members to have this kind of access to
this kind of volume,” relates Paul Kleinbaum, an attorney for Zazzali,
Fagella, Nowak, Kleinbaum & Friedman who has presented at the
Collective Bargaining Seminar every year since its inception in 1989.
The seminar is O’Brien’s brainchild, an idea he had 26 years ago
while still on the job and chairing the PBA Collective Bargaining
Committee, a vaunted position that has been passed on to the likes
of former President Tony Wieners, current Executive Vice-President
Marc Kovar and now E-board member and Ocean County Conference Chairman Cernek.
“After 27 years, I’m as enthusiastic about it as I was on Day One. It’s
truly a labor of love,” O’Brien noted. “When we first started this, there
was such a need for this information and that need has never slowed
down after all these years.”
The featured attraction each year is the speakers and the expertise
they share.
“I get requests from attorneys every year who want to speak,”
O’Brien notes. “The ones we have come in are well-received and
widely-recognized as the finest in the industry.”
Adds Kleinbaum: “Each speaker brings his or her own perspective
and that makes for a wealth of knowledge members get in those three
days that they can’t get anywhere else.”
The seminar thrives on response to, and interpretation of, the
changes in legislation that seem to come every year. Local members
are encouraged to bring their individual challenges to discussion as
a way to get input to help from the experts.
“We talk about truths, what’s really happening,” O’Brien explains.
“The members come because th