LCW Conference 2022 Brochure

Public Sector Employment Law Annual Conference

www.lcwlegal.com

Pre-Conference Session Costing Labor Contracts Wednesday, February 2 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM *Separate registration is required* The keys to successful negotiations include planning and costing. Just like planning a vacation, the amount of time and effort you put into planning and costing can determine the success of the trip. Costing contract proposals is similar to costing excursions on a vacation - they all sound like a good idea but can we afford them? Join us at this workshop to learn the importance of costing and methods you can use to make costing easy.

This session is also part of our Labor Relations Certificate program. We’ve added Bonus Content, since it is also our pre-conference session:

Compensation Surveys and Collective Bargaining!

As a bonus to this year’s pre-conference workshop, additional information on the development, impact, and usefulness of compensation surveys in collective bargaining will be highlighted shared with attendees!

#LCW22 #LCW2022 #LCWinSF

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Conference Schedule DAY Thursday ONE February 3 Opening Session: Defining Legal Issues to Prepare for 2022 8:45 AM - 10:00 AM

We welcome you back to an in-person conference with an opening session designed to get you up to speed and on your way! We’ll run down the biggest legal issues facing public agencies today and identify matters we’re monitoring for possible impact in 2022.

Concurrent Session #1 10:20 AM - 11:50 AM

Police and Fire Legal Update The Public Safety Legal Update is a conference staple. During this session, the most significant new court decisions, administrative decisions and statutes impacting personnel management of employees in law enforcement and fire departments will be discussed. Please join the presenter in an analysis of how these new laws impact your public safety agency, and learn practical tips for navigating new challenges that these laws create for managers, supervisors and human resources professionals.

HR Bootcamp: A Legal Tune Up To Get, and Stay, in Peak Legal Shape Whether you are new to public sector labor and employment relations, or an experienced practitioner, this legal tune-up ensures you are up to date on the most significant legal developments in this area and operating at peak efficiency to tackle the challenges ahead.

Navigating Key Labor Relations Topics in Bargaining This session will highlight hot topics at the table including key PERB cases that may impact negotiations and how employers handle labor relations issues. Recent legal changes along with laws that continue to challenge employers to negotiate up-to-date MOU provisions will be addressed. Compliance challenges and tips on navigating common collective bargaining mishaps will also be discussed. Don’t miss this insightful session on the trending topics at the table.

The Impact of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts on Employment Litigation Following the civil unrest and increased political polarization of 2020, there have been increased calls for social justice and an increased focus on issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) in the workplace. This presentation will highlight how DEI issues can present themselves within public agencies including but not limited to speech issues related to DEI and social justice, assessments related to equal pay, workplace harassment training, and hiring initiatives. The presentation will also analyze how DEI issues translate into case themes in employment litigation, be perceived by a jury, and the best practices for defending an agency in litigation where DEI issues are present.

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Conference Schedule DAY Thursday ONE February 3 Lunch

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Concurrent Session #2 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM

Public Safety: Top 10 Things Public Safety Management Needs To Know About HR and Personnel Law Your department’s most important assets are its employees. Your employees will also present you with your most significant leadership challenges. It is imperative that you are aware of the key legal issues that you will confront as you work to ensure your strategic plan stays on track and is not derailed. This session covers labor relations, discipline, fitness for duty and disability retirement issues to help you stay ahead of the curve.

HR Bootcamp: Managing a Remote or Hybrid Workforce Remote and Hybrid Work may have been seen as a temporary necessity during the pandemic, but the reality is that many departments may be composed of both in-office and remote employees on a longer term or even permanent basis. This means that we will need to utilize collaboration tools and techniques so employees can continue to work together, communicate effectively and provide services to our communities remotely.

This also means that supervisors will need the tools necessary to evaluate and supervise a hybrid workforce.

This session will focus on how the administrative team can successfully navigate the unique issues of a hybrid workforce. You are invited to bring any questions you may have to this session.

Successful Management of Disability Discrimination Claims Public sector disability discrimination claims are on the rise and many employers will be faced with requests for accommodations that may lead to lawsuits. While we discuss the interactive process and reasonable accommodations in other conference sessions; this session dives into the legitimate non-discriminatory reasons to deny an accommodation that puts your actions in the best defensible position in a lawsuit. We discuss lessons learned in disability discrimination lawsuits that will provide a blueprint for working with outside (or in-house) counsel to ensure litigation ends in the agency’s favor as quickly as possible, and at the lowest possible cost.

Play the Regular Rate of Pay Challenge The calculation of the Regular Rate of Pay (RRP) under the FLSA can be tough and errors can create liability for employers. In this interactive session, we will make math fun and engaging while we highlight the elements of compensation that should be included/excluded, how to calculate the RRP based on workweek/ work period, what hours are to be used in the calculation, and offer insights to common errors in regular rate of pay calculation methods. Our gameshow host is guaranteed entertainment, plus he will have prizes to award to participate who play in our RRP challenge!

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Conference Schedule DAY Thursday ONE February 3 Concurrent Session #3 3:15 PM - 4:45 PM

Public Safety: The Public’s Perception of Public Safety and Its Impact on Employment Litigation In light of wide-spread civil unrest following highly-publicized police use of force incidents, such as those resulting in the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, calls have grown louder in California and nationally for significant reform to law enforcement. At the same time, a polarized perception of law enforcement has materialized. Likewise, publicized incidents of racial and gender disparity within the firehouse have also lead to poor public opinion. The impact of these often strongly held-viewpoints on jurors, judges and arbitrators is something that litigators must prepare for in those cases that involve law enforcement or fire safety departments and personnel. This presentation will cover the impacts that those viewpoints, as influenced by current events, have on civil litigation and administrative appeals involving public safety personnel.

HR Bootcamp: Basics of Interactive Process The disability interactive process requires very specific steps to ensure that your agency has satisfied its legal obligation to show that reasonable accommodation has been fully vetted by your agency. This workshop will take you through the process, provide you the steps, and enable you to provide a meaningful process that can withstand the scrutiny of a challenge. Disability discrimination claims often challenge the interactive process provided, or not provided. This session will not only help you to avoid such a challenge, but will enable you to know that you have done what the law requires for your disabled applicants and employees.

Resilience and Recovery: Lessons Learned From COVID-19 In this presentation, we will discuss the major lessons that we, as a firm, have learned during the public health emergency caused by COVID-19. We will focus on measures that organizations may adopt and which will serve them well when circumstances test them and their organization’s capacity to respond to and thrive during difficult times. In particular, we will address the importance of the following: (1) building a mission driven organization; (2) establishing a leadership structure that is well defined and responsive to both the needs of the organization and those it serves; (3) developing an approach to organizational management that is forward thinking and proactively plans for change; (4) building a strong and flexible organization that respond and adapt to dynamic circumstances; and (5) employing a communication strategy that provides regular updates inside and outside the organization to keeps staff and clients engaged in the organization’s response to evolving circumstances.

How To Hire CalPERS Retirees and Avoid Headaches Retired annuitants continue to fill an important role for public agencies by allowing access to experienced professionals to perform short term special projects and serve in high level interim positions during recruitments. If done the right way, the relationship is beneficial to the agency and the retiree. However, if the complex rules and little known requirements are not followed, it could be a financial catastrophe. CalPERS still routinely audits and scrutinizes retired annuitant employment. This session will discuss, among other things, situations in which retired annuitant employment is permissible, the restrictions for hiring retired

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Conference Schedule DAY Thursday ONE February 3

annuitants, and independent contractors and third party employer arrangements. Reinstatement remedies are harsh, subject agencies to additional costs, and potentially cost retirees tens – or in some cases hundreds – of thousands of dollars in reimbursements to CalPERS. This session will address the basic rules and potential traps so that you are set for success!

Reception

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Unwind with colleagues after a thought provoking day with a reception and drinks.

Ask The Expert The Ask The Expert booth will be staffed throughout the conference’s breaks and free time.

Stop by to discuss any pressing labor, employment or education law questions you may have.

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Conference Schedule DAY Friday TWO February 4 Morning Walk

7:00 AM - 8:00 AM Morin Jacob and Scott Tiedemann kick off day two of the conference with a stroll though some of San Francisco’s key attractions. Join them and your fellow conference attendees in a fun way to start the morning!

Concurrent Session #4 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Hiring the Best—While (Lawfully) Building the Diversity of Your Work Force California’s public agencies are caught between a rock and a hard place: On the one hand, there has been a surge in interest among public agencies to find ways to serve their communities with a more diverse workforce—often coupled with increased community pressure to do so. On the other hand, the California constitution prohibits public agencies from factoring race, ethnicity or sex into hiring or promotional decisions. LCW has assisted numerous agencies across the state navigate this quagmire. In this workshop, members of our workforce diversity team, will provide the following essential building blocks for designing lawful workforce diversity plans: an overview of the legal parameters for diversity hiring; key legal principles that help you design diversity strategies that are lawful and merit based; and a framework for developing specific strategies tailored to the needs of your particular agency.

FLSA and MOU Overtime – How They Are Different and Why It Matters The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides the minimum legal requirements for public agency overtime payments. However, through collective bargaining, many public agencies have negotiated additional provisions in labor agreements that provide overtime compensation in excess of the legal minimum standards (MOU Overtime). Understanding the law governing overtime eligibility, the calculation of overtime, and the connection with payroll schedules are important elements for employers to understand to ensure minimum compliance with the law. Such knowledge will also allow employers to understand additional overtime compensation your agency is paying due to negotiated MOU provisions, which – unlike the requirements of the FLSA – may be changed through collective bargaining. In sum, knowing the difference between FLSA & MOU overtime can help mitigate FLSA liability if faced with a claim, can offer opportunities to restructure compensation during negotiations, and may provide insight on how your MOU overtime provisions obligate your agency to pay overtime in excess of that required by law.

IRS Hammers Public Agencies With Proposed ACA Penalties – Fix Your ACA Compliance and Reporting Now! IRS has issued proposed ACA penalties under the employer mandate to multiple public agencies. Even vendors are doing it wrong; and most vendors will not be contractually responsible for inaccurate reporting!

You may think you have the ACA covered, but it’s a complex law with many nuances that can result in the IRS assessing millions of dollars against your agency. This session will highlight the most common pitfalls we

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Conference Schedule DAY Friday TWO February 4 have seen with ACA compliance and reporting. We will provide an overview of key compliance issues and some of the common mistakes with reporting. The session will also provide a glimpse into how your vendors are reporting and explain to you what they are doing wrong, so that you can provide better oversight and avoid ultimate liability. Lastly, we will discuss what to do if you receive an IRS letter assessing a proposed employer shared responsibility payment (ESRP) on your agency. After this session you will be armed to fix ACA compliance issues, manage ACA reporting errors, and challenge a proposed ESRP. Negotiating Increases in Employees’ Retirement Contributions – Cost-Sharing and Other Strategies The pension rate increases and retiree medical cost increases for public agencies are well-known and have and will continue to divert funds from other important priorities and projects. In this session you will learn strategies for mitigating these cost increases through labor negotiations. The topics covered will include how to negotiate cost sharing of employer contributions, negotiating new tiers of specialty pays and retiree medical benefits, and alternative retirement cost saving methods. This session will also go over preferred MOU language and problem language to look out for and avoid. This session focuses on CalPERS rules and regulations, but the principles discussed can also be applied to non-CalPERS agencies.

Concurrent Session #5 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Accommodating Mental Health Disabilities-Strategies for Success Public sector disability discrimination claims are on the rise and many employers will face challenges accommodating an employee whose mental disability impacts or limits their job performance. Unlike physical disabilities, mental disabilities can be difficult to recognize and/or accommodate. This presentation will address some of the unique challenges an employer faces when presented with an employee’s mental disability. You’ll learn about an employer’s responsibilities when an unspoken mental disability is suspected; how far an employer is required to go to accommodate a mental disability; knowing when the accommodation process over; and the circumstances under which an employer can separate a disabled employee.

Free Speech During Tumultuous Times In light of recent events, including months of civil unrest, increased political polarization, and increased conversations regarding issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, speech and social media postings by public employees are being placed under the microscope. No one is exempt from this scrutiny from the intern to the city manager. These social changes will undoubtedly result in public agencies addressing complaints about things employees post or say and whether the agency can and/or should discipline an employee for such conduct. Whether in the office, at work-sanctioned events, or on social media, this presentation will focus on the very latest developments of First Amendment law and will use real-life case studies to explore how to navigate free speech in a politically charged world.

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Conference Schedule DAY Friday TWO February 4 Critical Skills for Successful Labor Relations Professionals Labor relations professionals work in dynamic environments. The work, the people, the subjects can be technical, emotional, and demanding. In this session, we will identify those critical skills that are timetested to deliver results for positive labor relations outcomes. Tools for relationship building, effective communication strategies, and analytical approaches to problem-solving are just a few of the subjects we will share to lay the groundwork for the development of skills that support success in labor relations.

Reducing Agency FLSA Liability in Remote Work Scenarios Most organizations have come a long way from March 2020 when getting large numbers of our workforce into remote work situations was critical. As remote work/telework continues on a regular basis or as part of a hybrid work schedule, employers should evaluate how remote work policies and practices comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Establishing expectations, communicating compliance issues to supervisors/ employees, and establishing methods to conduct periodic reviews of actual work activities is essential to protect the employer from FLSA liability. Through case studies and scenarios this session will help ensure you are on the right tract for effectively deploying remote work within your workforce.

Lunch

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Closing Session 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Come join us as we pull out our crystal ball to identify those things that will occupy our time and thoughts in the coming year – what we’re watching and anticipating in terms of Legislation, legal trends and future hot topics. We will also be honoring our colleagues who earned their Labor Relations Certificate this past year!

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Registration Information RATES Pre-Conference: Early Bird: Regular: Group Rate (3+ before Early Bird):

$475 (early) / $550 (regular) $620 (before December 15) $650 $575

Cancellation Policy: Cancellations must be received by January 19, 2022, to receive a full refund, less a $25 administrative fee. No refunds will be given after that time. Participant substitutions are accepted any time prior to January 28, 2022.

Please submit any cancellation notice or substitution request to abaldenegro@lcwlegal.com, karias@lcwlegal.com, or fax to 310.216.3377.

HOTEL Hyatt Regency San Francisco 5 Embarcadero Center San Francisco, CA 94111

To reserve a room, please visit: https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/groupbooking/SFORS/G-LIBR/ATTENDEE

QUESTIONS?

Please contact: Andy Baldenegro: 310.981.2320 | abaldenegro@lcwlegal.com Kaela Arias: 310.981.2087 | karias@lcwlegal.com

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MCLE

POST

Attending all of the sessions at the conference will provide you with up to 9.5 of MCLE credit.

Attendees can earn up to 3 hours of POST credit. In order to receive credit, you will need to sign in the POST Sign-In sheet available at each POST certified session.

HRCI Conference participants (including the pre-conference session) can earn up to 14.75 hours of MCLE credit, 14.75 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®).

Registration Information What are the COVID-19 guidelines for the 2022 LCW Conference?

LCW is closely monitoring all local and national alerts regarding public health and will abide by all local and national health guidelines respective to the location of the Annual Conference. By registering for the conference you acknowledge that you are aware that any interaction with the public poses an elevated risk of being exposed to COVID-19 and communicable health risks more generally. You further acknowledge that you will undertake all measures to protect your own health and others in attendance at LCW’s 2022 Annual Conference, including (a) maintaining social distance; (b) washing/sanitizing hands frequently; (c) following LCW published COVID-19 safety guidelines for the event and (d) adhering to applicable guidelines and mandates to the location of the conference.

Current City of San Francisco guidelines require the use of masks while indoors at all times, unless you are actively eating or drinking. The City also has a mandatory vaccination policy for all events that include indoor dining. As such, in accordance with local regulations, all LCW conference attendees must show proof of full vaccination. (Note the City does not make an exception for negative COVID tests – every attendee must show that they are fully vaccinated.)

THESE GUIDELINES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE BETWEEN NOW AND THE OPENING OF THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE. LCW will continue to keep you apprised of any guidelines and will post these on our website when available. IT IS YOUR RESONSIBILITY TO BE AWARE OF, AND FOLLOW, THE REQUIREMENTS WHEN THE CONFERENCE BEGINS.

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