Robert F. Millman

For 40 years, Millman has represented employers in unfair labor practices proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, in employment discrimination and wrongful termination litigation and in complex class actions.

"I'm a traditional labor attorney," he said. "I deal with organized labor on the management side." His goal: resist unions' membership drives.

When an arm of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters tried to organize a Southern California business recently, Millman represented the company. "We give advice and counsel, so the managers can explain to their workers why union representation is not in the best interests of the group," he said. "We let the managers know what they can say and not say. We were successful in defeating the union's effort."

Last year, he fended off efforts by the California Nurses Association to organize the registered nurses at Pasadena's Huntington Hospital. When the NLRB conducted a secret ballot election there, the nurses voted down the organizing effort.

Alongside opposing outright union vote campaigns, Millman has been successful in preventing ballots from taking place at all. In a union bid to organize a major auto parts importer, Millman said he was retained by management's lawyers. "Within two weeks, the employees signed a letter to the union saying they did not want to go through with an election," he said. "They had a change of heart, and we got the [organizing] petition withdrawn."

Millman said he and his firm have been pushing back hard against the Obama administration's Department of Labor as it seeks to enforce a new "persuader rule" that would end the so-called advice exception in organizing drives that let labor lawyers avoid disclosure of attorney-client relations.

On the other side is Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, who insisted recently, "Workers should know who is behind an anti-union message." Millman disagrees, when it comes to lawyers. "Our firm is very much involved in that," he said, referring to Littler's role in a federal lawsuit to enjoin the rule from taking effect this summer. "This is a white hot topic in the labor law world."

He described that skirmish as part of a larger struggle between employers and a Democratic executive branch. "We're doing our best to protect the employer community," Millman said. "We oppose everything under this President's pro-labor agenda. Someone has got to push back — and that's why I'm here."

— John Roemer