When your agency sits down to negotiate with public-sector unions, you’re negotiating more than the cost of labor. You’re also negotiating your agency’s ability to do its work while maintaining long-term fiscal stability. Yet many elected officials don’t feel fully equipped to navigate negotiations with seasoned union leaders.
Join us for a special CLEO virtual training, Negotiating with Government Unions: What Local Elected Officials Need to Know, on Thursday, September 17, 2026, from 12:00–1:00 p.m., with California Policy Center Senior Fellow Mark Moses, author of The Municipal Financial Crisis: A Framework for Understanding and Fixing Government Budgeting.
Mark spent three decades in California municipal government, most of it as a finance director on management’s side of the bargaining table. He’ll share practical strategies to help local elected officials approach negotiations more effectively and with greater confidence.
You’ll learn:
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The one test to apply to every item on the table — and why it almost never gets asked in the room where the deal gets made
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The four ways management loses ground at the table even when everyone is doing their job
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What management rights are, which of yours have gone unused, and how an unused right quietly stops being yours
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How your agency’s bargaining parameters actually get set — and what is never in them
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What to do if you’re outnumbered on your city council or governing board
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Plus, lessons from real-world negotiations in California local governments
Everyone who registers will receive What to Ask Your Labor Counsel — and Your City Manager or Superintendent, a practical, one-page guide to the questions elected officials should be asking — including why each question matters and which answers should raise a red flag. The training will include time for Q&A.