Labor Educator
Nina Fendel
Emeryville, CA
Email: nfendel@unioncounsel.net
Telephone: 510-337-1001
Education:
J.D., New College School of Law, 1981
Antioch College, 1967-1969
Practice Areas:
Appellate Litigation
Competitive Bidding and Prevailing Wage Laws
Labor-Management Cooperation Committees
Organizing Campaigns
Political and Legislative Action
Private Sector Labor Relations
Training for Union Advocates
Union Governance
Ms. Fendel is a retired attorney who was a member of the California State Bar for 40 years. She currently works as a labor educator, helping union and labor-management staff, officers and leaders understand the law and perfect their advocacy skills. Ms. Fendel joined Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld in 2006.
Ms. Fendel’s work in public interest advocacy training dates back to the War on Poverty and evolved to the labor movement beginning in the early 1980s. From 1972 to 1988, Ms. Fendel was employed by San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Services, the National Paralegal Institute, the California Department of Industrial Relations, and the Painting and Drywall Work Preservation Fund. From 1988 to 2006, Ms. Fendel worked for the California Faculty Association (CFA) (NEA/SEIU 1983), where she held a variety of positions, including regional representative, membership specialist, arbitration specialist, and Director of Organizing. In her time with CFA, she won the first CAL/OSHA citation in the state on new indoor air regulations and what is thought to be the first federal OSHA citation relating to workplace violence in the country. Ms. Fendel also developed groundbreaking training for union activists on dealing with violence in the workplace.
In addition to her current role with the firm, Ms. Fendel works as a labor educator with the Alliance for Labor Standards Education and Training (ALSET), a nonprofit established with WRR to promote and provide advocacy skills training around the country. Ms. Fendel specializes in interactive, learner-based training, primarily with the building trades and entertainment industries. She is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops hosted by the IATSE Education Department and the National Alliance for Fair Contracting.
Ms. Fendel has served as co-editor of three editions of California Workers’ Rights, published by the UC Berkeley Institute of Labor Research and Education. She was also a member of the organizing committee for the Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival for 30 years.
In her spare time, Ms. Fendel sometimes sings with the Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus.
Notable Accomplishments at WRR
During her time practicing law with WRR, Ms. Fendel specialized in issues related to the construction of public works, including questions surrounding the right to a prevailing wage (a special type of minimum wage required in public works construction projects). One of her most memorable victories was defeating a University of California campus’s effort to avoid paying prevailing wages by entering into a complex leasing agreement with a contractor who built housing and retail space on University land. UC then claimed that the project was not on University land because it had been leased to a private company, and therefore that the requirement to pay prevailing wages didn’t apply.
Ms. Fendel also helped establish, in a case in Alaska, that major repairs of boilers in public buildings constituted public construction rather than merely work performed on private property, and that accordingly workers were entitled to prevailing wages. In addition to fighting for the rights of workers to receive prevailing wage, Ms. Fendel helped develop, along with former WRR attorney Patricia Gates, a strategy of advocating for fair contracting during the competitive bidding process, in order to prevent low-road contractors notorious for committing wage theft from securing contracts for public works projects. This tactic is now in widespread use across the country.