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 involved in employment law business. Sometimes after work, they would go to “working dates” at La Tavola where they socialized with arbitrators and labor-relations professionals.
They got married in 2017 and have a daughter, Grace.
Robin joined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2018 and immediately joined AFGE Local 421. She ran for president of the local and became its president in 2022.
As two local presidents working hard to help improve working conditions for their coworkers at two different agencies, they are a major source of help and support for one another. Ashby’s experience has been especially helpful. He has been with the National Archives since 2007. He has been an AFGE officer since 2012 and became local president a few years after that.
While Robin’s agency has about 1,000 employees with a single focus on the energy industry, the National Archives is bigger with nearly 1,900 bargaining unit workers whose jobs are diverse.
“For me it’s useful having Ashby around because he’s been doing this for so long and I’m so new at it,” Robin explained. “Sometimes we strategize on what would make sense about how to handle a situation in a labor context.”
“Robin is a lawyer, and I’m not, so her perspective is helpful to me,” Ashby said.
Theirs is a perfect partnership born out of commitment and love for the labor movement. We are lucky to have them in our AFGE family!