Robert F. Millman

Prominent labor and employment attorney Millman is regularly called upon by employers to provide discerning counsel on labor relations issues and high-stakes union organizing efforts that are impacting industries ranging from high tech to health care, logistics and food production.

His involvement often does not lead to litigation. Instead, the attorney with 43 years of experience frequently helps companies reach accords with labor unions.

In the summer of 2016, for example, Millman led Matson Navigation Co. Inc.’s labor negotiations with the American Radio Association bargaining unit. It was the first time Millman had represented Matson in labor talks. In a record four days, he succeeded in bringing the two sides to an agreement that included a modest wage increase.

“Some people write the best briefs. Some people are the best oral arguers. I think I’ve been blessed with appropriate interpersonal skills,” Millman said. He noted that in that case he didn’t bring any “baggage to the table with respect to, perhaps, the styles of prior council that had been utilized.”

Millman was retained by P&R Paper Supply Inc. in Redlands to represent the leading janitorial and paper products supplier during labor negotiations with Teamsters Local 63, which had won a National Labor Relations Board election covering the employees in August 2016.

After 11 months of negotiations, a labor contract was reached, with health insurance and 401(k) benefits remaining unchanged, while wage levels remained at market levels for California’s Inland Empire region.

In recent years, Millman has noticed an increase in high-tech companies seeking his services, as more of those businesses grow from startups to larger enterprises with increasingly complex needs.

“Candidly, one of the last things startup people think about when they are starting a company are employee relations and labor employment issues. They’re growing, if they’re succeeding, and they haven’t been paying any attention to the employment law problems that can surface when you have a workforce,” he said.

He has stepped in to provide a critical examination, from an employment law perspective, of the tech companies’ forms, policies and approaches, which might need “a complete makeover because they have been ignored,” Millman noted. “It’s like doing an MRI of a company, relative to their entire labor relations structure.”

— Michele Chandler