PSLR Certificate Program Course Offerings

Public Sector Labor Relations (PSLR)

Fall 2024 - Spring 2025 Schedule

Public Sector Labor Law: An Overview
Click here to register
Friday, September 27, 2024
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Leonard Schiro, J.D., Nova Southeastern
This course will explore the fundamentals of public sector labor law, with a special focus on the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act. Participants will receive an overview of key public sector legal concepts, practices, and procedures, with topics including the role of administrative agencies, scope of negotiations, representation cases, unfair practices, and impasse procedures.

Public Sector Collective Bargaining
Click here to register
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Anthony Bagliore
The history of public sector unionism and an overview of the theory and practice of collective public sector representation and bargaining in the United States since the 1960s. Are public sector unions the same as or different from private sector unions? In what ways? With what consequences? Are they essential to our democracy of obstacles to it? 

PERC Policies and Procedures
Click here to register
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructors: Joseph Blaney & Marisa Koz
This course will review the basic procedures for the filing of petitions and charges with PERC. Topics include filing unfair practice charges; and filing petitions regarding representation issues, scope of negotiation issues, notices of impasse requesting mediation, as well as petitions requesting interest and grievance arbitration.

Public Sector Grievance Handling & Discipline
Click here to register
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Joyce Klein, Esq., J.D.
This course will examine the grievance procedure, employee and employer rights and responsibilities, standards of just cause and their application to real life cases, and the burden of proof. Participants will discuss how to resolve grievances at the lowest level and will be given a brief overview of the arbitration hearing process.

Scope of Public Sector Negotiations
Click here to register
Friday, March 7, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Christine Lucarelli-Carneiro, Esq.
This course will address all aspects of the scope of negotiations in New Jersey’s public sector. It will trace the legislative, judicial, and PERC developments that have affected the issues that can and must be the subjects of collective negotiations and grievance arbitration. Also, how PERC decides the scope in particular cases.

Grievance Arbitration I
Click here to register
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Joan Parker, Ph.D
This sequence of two courses is designed to increase the practioner's skills in preparing and presenting grievance arbitration cases. Students must complete the first in order to take the second.

Grievance Arbitration II: Advanced
Click here to register
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Joan Parker, Ph.D
Major subjects discussed: preparing for arbitration, the hearing, presenting a case, standards for just cause, evidence, criteria for contract interpretation, remedies, the decision, and different systems.

Public Sector Contract Interpretation
Click here to register 
Friday, May 2, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (EST)
Instructor: Steven Weissman, Esq. 
How the meaning and enforceability of contract language negotiated under the N.J. Employer-Employee Relations Act has evolved over the last 40 years, and how court decisions, arbitrators' opinions, and PERC rulings have served to establish a set of principles and guidelines for negotiating binding contract language in the public sector.