Nicole A. Buffalano

Nicole A. Buffalano is a labor and employment partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where she has practiced since 2013. Before that, she worked as a board attorney for the National Labor Relations Board in New York and Los Angeles. She graduated magna cum laude in 2006 from the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America.

Her work at the NLRB was useful. "I learned a ton," Buffalano said. "I started in the New York office--an incredibly busy place. Then I transferred to Los Angeles, a city with a strong union movement. I got an insight into everything the agency does. I learned how companies do business, I learned investigating skills and I established good relationships with folks at the agency. All of it helps me help clients now."

Her current clients include Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC, Covenant Care California, the U.S. Soccer Federation and Toyota Motor North America Inc.

Buffalano serves as the co-lead counsel representing Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC in a series of labor arbitrations by former employees alleging time fraud and misrepresentations. There are 38 cases altogether.

"This is a government contractor that assembles and disassembles nuclear weapons," she said. In one of the first of the arbitrations, following a multiday hearing, she obtained a ruling upholding and validating her client's termination decision. The hearing led the union to voluntarily dismiss two pending related arbitrations; it is considering dismissing a third. Buffalano said the early win set a strong precedent for the remaining cases.

"Strategically, it's important to think about the strength of your cases and which should go first," she said. "The union wouldn't let us cherry-pick, but we got one to start with that was strong for our client. Happily, it was a success."

In the shadow of the pandemic, Buffalano led the negotiation of three collective bargaining agreements on behalf of Covenant Care California, a leading post-acute and health care services provider. "Collective bargaining is always complicated, but in the fall of 2020 in a field strongly hit by Covid, everything was intensified," she said.

The deal-making came when workers were confronting the deadliest health crisis in a century and the industry was assessing potentially calamitous financial challenges and constraints. "We had to balance the needs of front-line employees and the need of the company. Our goal was to avoid any kind of strike or lockout during the crisis."

The pandemic exponentially increased the demand for testing, vaccination, PPE, other supplies and equipment, even as global supply chains were disrupted. She successfully dealt with the demands of the bargaining unit employees without significant work disruption.

"And these were remote negotiations, making it much more difficult," Buffalano said. "In the end, nobody was happy, but everybody could live with the contracts we negotiated."

- John Roemer