Labor leader calls Ryan Crosswell a ‘union buster’ over employment history

Ryan Crosswell promises to be pro-worker if elected to Congress, but labor leaders have been uneasy about his former employment at an aggressive anti-union firm since he entered the race.

Tensions over a previous job held by one congressional candidate running for office in the Lehigh Valley flared this past weekend after a labor leader criticized that candidate’s previous employment at one of the country’s union-avoidance law firms.

“ Ryan Crosswell is a union buster,” Jim Irwin, president of the Lehigh Valley AFL-CIO, told attendees at a labor dinner this past weekend. 

In a video obtained from the gathering, Irwin added, “ I think it needs to be said and people need to know because he’s only been a Democrat for not even a year. I do think there’s a lot of people in the party that are fooled over this.”

Irwin then went on to mention that Crosswell worked for Littler Mendelson, one of the country’s largest anti-union law firms. 

Crosswell is a Democratic candidate running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District looking to run against US House Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh). 

Other candidates vying for a spot on November’s ballot include Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter and leader of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association, Lamont McClure, former Northampton County executive, and Carol Obando-Derstine, former regional manager under former US Sen. Bob Casey (D). 

In the primary race, labor is lining up behind Brooks with over a dozen local and national unions supporting his candidacy.  

Prior to becoming a Democrat after the 2024 election, Crosswell worked for Littler Mendelson from 2011 to 2014 and then the US Department of Justice from 2014 to 2020.

Crosswell’s campaign brushed aside his previous employment stating that he worked “for a large firm early in his career,” and noted that he did not work on any anti-union campaigns.

“He left that job over a decade ago to join the Department of Justice under President Obama,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Keystone.

“As a prosecutor, he worked to protect our country from fraudsters, child predators and corrupt politicians, until the day that Donald Trump tried to force him to drop a case against one of his cronies. Ryan is pro-worker through and through and will have workers’ backs now and when he’s elected to Congress.”

In recent years, Littler Mendelson was hired by Starbucks, which has a strategy to delay elections and vote counts and argue that union elections should not happen on a store-by-store basis, according to a report from the Labor and Working Class History Association. 

According to The American Prospect, in 2025, the law firm advised clients in Rhode Island with a “high risk tolerance” that they could decide not to adhere to the state’s ban on captive audience meetings, which are mandatory meetings held by management to dissuade employees from forming a union.