What do most people talk about on their first date?
Favorite movies, TV shows, hobbies?
For Robin Cleland and Ashby Crowder, presidents of AFGE Locals 421 and 2578 respectively, they talked about labor laws – mostly the Wagner Act, which guarantees the right of private sector workers to join unions.
That was in 2016 when Robin was in law school and Ashby was a union officer representing the National Archives employees in Washington, DC and several other locations.
“I remember we talked about what’s the same and what’s different with federal labor laws,” Ashby laughed as he recalled the topic of the conversation on their first date.
Robin was already familiar with unions as she happened to be taking labor law when they met. Her grandfather also happened to be a labor law professor at George Washington University. He later became a labor arbitrator after his retirement from his university job.
“It was already an interest of mine. It was kind of intriguing to me that Ashby was involved with that when I met him,” Robin recounted. “It was something we talked about off and on. As I was taking the course, we talked about various labor topics.”
The love for labor and employment issues pulled them closer together.
Shortly before they met, Ashby had been attending presentations hosted by the Maryland chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association at the restaurant La Tavola in Baltimore’s Little Italy. After law school, Robin started working at a law firm and was...
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