Phil Wilson: [00:00:10]
Hey, everyone, we just finished recording this week’s Left a Boom Show episode with Amy Moor Gaylord. Amy is a partner at Ackerman LLC in Chicago. We covered a number of topics, including her formative experiences as an attorney at the regional office in Peoria, Illinois of the National Labor Relations Board, including her craziest experience there, and what they do with those ballot boxes when people are not voting. We talked a lot about captive audience meeting bands, both at the state level and federal level, and some really good practical tips on communication strategy in campaigns where all these speech restrictions are in the air.
[00:00:50]
And then finally, we cover what movies we would be in that are based in Chicago. So, enjoy this week’s episode with Amy Moor Gaylord. Well, welcome, Amy. It’s great to have you on the show. We just saw each other in person not too long ago at your beautiful conference room overlooking Lake Michigan. But we’re really glad to have you join us here on The Left of Boom Show. How are you doing?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:01:17]
I’m doing great. And thank you so much for inviting me to be on here. I’m truly excited to be here today.
Phil Wilson: [00:01:22]
Yeah, this will be great. Why don’t we just start off? Tell us a little bit about your role at Ackerman and what are you doing now.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:01:32]
Sure, sure. So I am the co-chair of the traditional labor practice at Ackerman. I’m a partner in the Chicago office. I also have a role in the Chicago office. I am the Chicago partner liaison to our Women’s Initiative network. I organize programming for women in our office to get us together and talk about issues affecting women in the law and also socially having happy hours and whatnot as well, and to be a resource to more junior female attorneys.
Phil Wilson: [00:02:02]
Oh, that’s great. I don’t think we talked about that. That’s cool. That’s great. How long have you been doing that role?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:02:11]
So, I’ve held that role, I think this is, I want to say, going on my second year of doing that. We have a women’s cohort program. So I act as a mentor to one of the other more junior partners in my office. It’s something I really enjoy. I really enjoy working with more junior attorneys and helping them as I’ve been helped along the way. And providing support and resources to help them establish their careers. So, I’ve been doing that, I think about two years, but I’ve been a mentor for longer than that. I was always active in the mentoring space. I think mentors are really important to helping junior attorneys get to where they want to go in their careers.
Phil Wilson: [00:02:53]
Yeah. Great. Which leads us to our next question we always ask our guests based on what I call the hero assumption. Leaders in our lives that were really important to us early on to kind of get us to where we are now. A lot of times there’s people that are, you know, influences that believed in us and saw maybe years ahead of time where we were going. They saw our potential maybe at times that we didn’t believe in ourselves. And I’m curious, is there anybody stand out in your life that was like that?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:03:34]
Yes, actually. And I took my glasses off. I was getting a lot of glare, and I didn’t want all of our watchers to see that. So, I worked for the board, and we’re going to talk about it at some point in time. But then I worked for two different law firms, and I had an experience where I was just thrown into the deep end at both of those firms. And then I moved out of my second firm, which was a big law firm. Not the firm I’m at now. And I moved to a smaller labor and employment boutique firm where I met an attorney by the name of Mike Richardson.
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And he just really invested a lot of time with me, helped me really shape my practice as a labor lawyer, and hone my negotiating skills. He made deals with clients to bring me along you know, billing me out at various different ways, but really took the time to mentor me, to work with me, to introduce me to all of his clients, to learn how to get clients, how to become a valuable resource to clients, and to have them to trust you and rely on you. But really, he was the first one who saw a lot of promise in me, banked on that.
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Again, spent a lot of time mentoring me working with me, and just became, in addition to being a mentor, a really good friend. He’s since retired now. But both he and his wife I consider true friends and both just lovely, lovely people. And I’m so happy to have worked with him for many, many years.
Phil Wilson: [00:05:03]
Yeah. That’s great. I had a similar experience at the first boutique law firm that I practiced at where I was thrown into things that maybe I shouldn’t have, but gives you that practical experience, figuring things out. And having someone who believes that you’ve got what it takes to do it, eventually you get to the point where you’re like, okay, I see what they’re seeing. I can do it, right?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:05:34]
Exactly.
Phil Wilson: [00:05:36]
And just quickly going back to mentoring young women lawyers, especially in labor law. You still go to the ABA meetings. And a lot of guys do labor law. I’m curious. What are maybe some key tips or things that you share with young women that you’re mentoring?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:06:05]
That’s a great question. So, I am one of the past management co-chairs of the Developing Labor Law Committee under the Labor and Employment section of the ABA. I’ve been attending their midwinter meetings since 2001. When I attended that first 2001 meeting, there were eight women there, just eight out of the I don’t know how many people were at the meeting. We have grown that number to we’re hitting maybe 30% of the people who are attending now are women. And I think that is a direct result of people like me and some of my colleagues reaching out to younger female attorneys and encouraging them and inviting them to come along and making them really feel welcome once they’re there.
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It’s one thing to just say to a more junior female attorney, hey, come to this meeting. But if they don’t feel welcome and they don’t feel supported at that meeting, they’re not going to come back. It just isn’t going to work that way. And you really hit the nail on the head. Not a lot of women practice in this particular space. It is a highly male-dominated space. But the flip side of that is that I’ve grown an incredible network of female labor attorneys, traditional labor attorneys.
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We have a group text that we have constantly called the Lady Labor Lawyers. And you can just shoot out a text. You see an issue that maybe you’re not sure what the answer is, or you need a sample of something or whatever it is, and you’ll have 20 or so labor lawyers there as your support network who can help you.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:07:48]
We act as referral sources for each other. We act as- is this a good arbitrator or who should I pick for this arbitration panel. And then get together socially when we have meetings. So, coming up in November is the ABA Section Conference, ELANY Section Conference, which is one of the largest ELANY conferences in the country. We’re already planning to meet up, whether it’s to have drinks or have dinner and get together and share, you know, war stories and anecdotes and the things that we’ve seen over the past year.
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Because, as you know, labor law continues to change and evolve. And we’re seeing new things almost every day. So, again, one of the things that we’ve really developed on in that committee, and I think the PMP committee, the Practice and Procedure Committee, have also focused on this is really, really reaching out to more junior labor attorneys, female labor attorneys, and getting them to come to these meetings to grow in the ranks, to become leaders in the committee and in the section. And I think it’s a great way to really get involved and stay in the know on labor topics.
Phil Wilson: [00:08:50]
Yeah. I’ve noticed that at the meetings as well. And it’s not just women, right? It’s a diversity breakfast that they hold. And there’s a lot of effort that’s being made to diversify the management side labor bar, which I think is, is really important. And I think that’s great that you’re so involved in that.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:09:13]
Yeah, I totally agree. Those are all strong initiatives of the ABA and the section in particular.
Phil Wilson: [00:09:19]
Yeah. I know part of your experience when you first came up. So, before you were on the management side, you were you worked at the board. So, tell us a little bit about what is it like. Firstly, where did you work and what was that like day to day?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:09:39]
Sure. So, I worked in Peoria. It was at the time, region 33. It’s now a subregion of, I believe, region 25, in Indianapolis. I worked under Glen Zip, who is a pretty legendary labor guru, long-time arbitrator after he retired from the board, and unfortunately passed away earlier this year.
Phil Wilson: [00:10:00]
So, I know part of your prior experience was working at the NLRB, one of the regions. And I think our listeners and viewers would really enjoy learning a little bit about what that’s like. So, tell us a little bit about working at the board.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:10:18]
Sure. I loved working at the board. I worked at Region 33, which at the time was its own region at Peoria. There was a little company there that you might have heard of called Caterpillar. So, they had their own region there. And it’s now currently a subregion. I believe it’s still region 25, Indianapolis. I worked under Glen Zip, a long-time labor guru who unfortunately passed away earlier this year, but a great person to work for. I had wanted to work for the labor board- this is going to sound a little bit crazy.
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My undergraduate degree is in industrial and labor relations from Cornell. And so, my sophomore year, sophomore, first semester, you’re required to take labor law. And I took that class. I did not go to law school thinking I was going to be a labor lawyer. But I sat down, I was in the labor law class, and I started reading the book and the textbook, and all I said to myself was, I want to work for the NLRB. I know that sounds crazy for a 19-year-old to say, I want to work for the National Labor Relations Board, particularly at the time when I went to college and people thought labor unions were going the way of the dinosaur. But that’s what I wanted to do.
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And I was focused on getting a job at the labor board when I graduated from law school. And of course, that’s what happened. I really enjoyed my time there. As one of the more junior attorneys or board agents, I was tasked with doing a lot of elections. I was only there for a little over a year, and I conducted over 30 elections during the time I was there.
Phil Wilson: [00:11:51]
That was a busy region.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:11:54]
It was a very busy region, and we had a lot of people focused on doing work for that one company. And so, the rest of us picked up all the other work, which was great.
Phil Wilson: [00:12:04]
Yeah. You were in the aftermath of that big strike where- I forget, but I did some work in that region, like when I was practicing, and all they did was complain about the large employer there that you’re talking about because there must have been a thousand unfair labor practice charges on both sides. It was it was nuts.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:12:27]
Yeah. And they couldn’t even handle them all out of the Peoria region. And I don’t want to tell you too much about how the sausage is made, but they pre-addressed envelopes because at the time we didn’t use email and faxes and everything. So, we pre-addressed envelopes to the law firm that they used so that we could just send things out. And then we farmed a lot of those. A lot of those charges were farmed out to other regions too. But again, the flip side of that is that I got to do a lot of union elections, which was a great experience.
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Anything from like a little tiny, you know, five-person mom-and-pop shop to huge transportation companies and things like that. I did one election for a really large hospital. It was over a thousand voters in the bargaining unit. So, just very diverse experiences.
Phil Wilson: [00:13:22]
Yeah. And that would be a way to really get a quick dunk into the deep end of the pool on labor law. I was the weirdo that I knew going into law school the only thing I wanted to do was labor law which made the rest of law school pretty boring. Anyway, I had chosen my adventure before I got there. But that’s cool that you figured that out and decided to do this because, looking back, you know, how important was that one class, right?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:14:01]
Shaped my entire career.
Phil Wilson: [00:14:02]
Yeah. All right. So, any other highlight? What’s the craziest thing that that happened while you worked at the board?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:14:15]
Oh, great question. And I’m going to point back to that election I was just talking about. So, that election was over a thousand voters, as I said. We had three board agents assigned to it. It was in Springfield, Illinois, and I was living in Peoria. And I believe it was a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We had three days of polling. And it was again, in a hospital, so it was nurses and other medical technicians. So, we were doing polling over every time they switched shifts. So, 7 a.m. in the morning, 3 p.m. in the afternoon,11:00 at night. So, we’re polling constantly.
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And the Springfield newspaper on the front page I believe it was printed that the border agents take the ballot boxes with them everywhere they go, including in the bathroom and in their hotel rooms. And so, the two board agents I was assigned with, we were all worried that someone was going to break into our cars or hotel rooms to try to get the ballot boxes. And then just to add crazy to crazy, because at the time they still mailed out, mailed out your board results, whether you passed the bar or not. And so, I’m in Springfield, I’m not able to travel back to Peoria because of having to poll every few hours, open the election again.
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And everyone I knew had gotten their bar results, and I knew mine were in my mailbox at home in Peoria. So, we got done with the election on Friday night. Again, that polling period was about I think it was like 7 p.m. around that time. And then we had to count all the ballots to see who won the election. We were up on a stage like in an auditorium, the board agents with spotlights shining on us. It’s a hundred degrees because of these spotlights. And we’re up there counting these ballots. And all I can think about is I want to get home. I want to see if I pass the bar. I want to get home. I want to see if I passed the bar.
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We finished counting. It takes a long time to count over a thousand ballots. I must have driven 150 miles an hour back to Peoria. And fortunately, obviously, I passed the bar, but it was so nerve-wracking. But that was probably the craziest experience I had there.
Phil Wilson: [00:16:27]
Now that begs the other follow-up question. As a somewhat of a clean freak, do you take the ballot boxes to the bathroom with you?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:16:38]
You can’t leave them unattended. So, you either have to leave them with another board agent, or yeah, you have to take them.
Phil Wilson: [00:16:48]
I guess if there’s only one board agent, you can’t leave it unattended. Maybe at least go get it to the trunk of your car before you have to set it down on the bathroom. But anyway, that’s funny.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:17:00]
Yeah. Nobody’s allowed to touch but a board agent.
Phil Wilson: [00:17:04]
Yeah. Be sure to go to the first balloting period. All right. Let’s switch gears. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about employer-free speech and captive audience bands. So, you’re sitting in Illinois which is a state that’s passed one of these captive audience bands. But talk a little bit about, first of all, your general view of these captive audience bands. Maybe explain a little bit. Why don’t we start there? Just explain a little bit about what is a captive audience band.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:17:36]
Okay. So, when I started my career, for years, it was always the case that employers could hold mandatory meetings to talk about the pros and cons of unionization, inform their employees about voting. Et cetera. Et cetera. up until the 24-hour period immediately preceding the election. So, you could do it up until basically the whole day before. You’re allowed to have these mandatory meetings that you could discipline employees for not attending or penalize them in some way for not attending.
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And very early on in my career, I worked for another firm that was very well known for its scorched earth union-busting techniques. They were actually very proud of it. It was in their marketing literature. And so, some of what I learned very early on was the scorched earth, we’re having mandatory meetings, we’re firing anybody who doesn’t show up, we’re going to discipline them if they don’t come to this meeting, listen to us talk. And I have to say, over time, my perspective on that changed quite a bit to the point that I don’t know what message it sends to an employee when you tell them, come listen to me and trust me and vote for me, or I will discharge you and I will fire you, I’ll discipline you.
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And so, many years ago I pivoted to making these meetings voluntary. Basically saying to employees, we’re going to have a meeting. This is what we’re going to talk about. You can either choose to attend or you can continue to work during that time period. I will say most employees would rather take a break you know, for 20 minutes or whatever it is to come in. And we’ll get to it a little bit, but it is a little bit vague, the Illinois law, and it’s pretty expansive in its language, and it’s a little bit vague as to whether you can still do- even that is considered voluntary.
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But again, these meetings were always considered totally acceptable that you were allowed to have them. And now, Illinois has put into place this ban, which we can talk about.
Phil Wilson: [00:19:51]
Yeah. So I guess, just to be clear, under the federal law, the National Labor Relations Act, at this point, that has not changed. An employer still has a right to if they want to mandate attendance at a meeting. I think you raise a really important point. Do you really need to mandate attendance at a meeting? And I think I think you’re right. Generally, you don’t. First of all, people often want to know what the employer’s position is, and they want to hear what the employer has to say about it. If you’re on the union side, you want to hear what they’re saying because you want to respond to it.
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So, having to mandate- it’s definitely a way overblown concern, I think on the board side. It seems like, I don’t know, it’s a PR position, I think, more than anything else. But it is the case that some employers will discipline employees if they don’t show up for a meeting. So, it does exist. But I agree with you. I don’t know that it’s a great tactic. But let’s talk a little bit about what Illinois law says.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:21:06]
So the Illinois law says you can have voluntary meetings. You can’t discipline, discharge, or retaliate against an employee for not attending. And you have to tell them the purpose of the meeting. It bans that mandatory meeting on the basis of talking about either religious views or political views. And the political views encompass talking about either the pros or cons of unionization. So, you basically have to tell employees what it’s about. And the meeting must be truly voluntary. And that’s the point that I’m getting to that I believe the Illinois law, to me, is a little bit vague on that point, because it does say you can’t reward an employer, or incentivize them to attend. And we have yet to see what that means.
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Does that mean you can’t give people a paid break to come attend this? Basically you’re getting a 20-minute break from your workstation to come listen to this meeting. Is that an incentive or is that an award? I don’t know. And it’s again, not clear on its face. And it hasn’t been tested. As you know, Phil, these laws are proliferating around the country, but they’re getting tested through lawsuits all over the country. So, we’ve yet to see what happens, whether they’re preempted by the act. People often forget, and I’d love to remind them that the act has a specific section 8C, which gives employers the right to express their views on unionization.
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For years, we’ve always talked about FOE, right? Your facts, opinions, and examples. We could always talk about those things. We have the right under 8C to do that on the management side. And I think some of the board members and the GC would like to think that 8C doesn’t exist. And to your point, Phil, about it’s almost like much ado about nothing- I remember being at the section conference last year and talking about, oh, captive audience speeches, captive audience.
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And me and some of my again, lady labor lawyer friends were just looking at each other, ‘What are you even talking about? We don’t even use those. You make it seem like we’re all out there forcing employees to do these terrible things when we hold voluntary meetings. Come listen to us.’ But I think they would like it if we- and they have said as much that employers should not be part of the process at all, should not even be involved in the unionization process at all. We should sit idly by while something happens with our employees that are, again, our employees. We employ them.
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Some of my companies that my clients are- for example, family-owned businesses. This is their life. And they should not be a part of what happens in their workplace? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Phil Wilson: [00:23:48]
Yeah. And then, to reemphasize, the act literally says it shall not be an unfair labor practice for an employer to express its views on this subject. Not to mention the pesky First Amendment that also protects political speech.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:24:05]
Oh, that old thing.
Phil Wilson: [00:24:06]
Right. These state laws have been around for a while. And there have been some early cases. Now, a lot of times they get punted on standing. There hasn’t been a really full-throated this is preempted by the NLRA decision yet at a federal level. And we need to get that. That needs to get on the record somewhere. And maybe there’s a circuit split and eventually the Supreme Court can rule on this. But this kind of attack on employer speech has definitely gained steam.
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Any blue state around, it’s coming soon to a state near you. And employers really need to be aware of it. You have to decide do you want to mandate or not. I agree with you. I don’t think mandatory meetings are really- The only time I feel like a mandatory meeting is ever necessary is if you’re holding meetings and sometimes a union will be like, ‘Nobody show up to the meeting,’ and they’ll kind of pressure people to avoid going to the meeting. And in those cases, I could see the logic of going, ‘Look, everybody has to come to this meeting.’.
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But beyond that, I don’t really see why you would worry about it. If someone doesn’t want to come to the meeting and doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, they probably have made up their mind. And that’s not who you’re trying to communicate to anyway.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:25:41]
I absolutely agree with that. And none of this bans employers, managers, or supervisors from walking around and simply talking about these issues on a day-to-day basis. Morning shift meetings or just going up to employees at their workstations, just as a supervisor or manager would normally do. And that’s a better way of communicating with employees on even a less formal basis. But to your point, yeah, if you’re in that position, obviously these are all very fact-specific, but if you’re in that situation where the union has essentially told employees don’t go to any employer meetings, it is a useful tool that you can have in your back pocket. Yeah.
Phil Wilson: [00:26:24]
Well, and of course, you know, the General Council would like to also prohibit one-on-one conversations if possible, or at least mandatory one-on-one conversations. So anyway, stay tuned. We’ll see where that ends up. Now you do a lot of work in a bunch of different sectors. I know you’ve talked about healthcare on the board side, but I know you’ve done it in your private practice. But like healthcare public sector higher ed. Tell me a little bit about how things change when you’re going from like private sector to public or healthcare versus manufacturing. Just help us understand that a little bit.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:27:08]
Sure. That’s a great question. I’ll talk a little bit about the public versus private sector first. So, obviously, the National Labor Relations Act doesn’t cover public sector entities. It’s your state labor law, which varies from state to state. Some states don’t even have or are very bare bones. Illinois has a very robust Illinois Labor Relations Act and Illinois Education Labor Relations Act that governs K through 12 community colleges, public universities. I don’t do a whole lot of practice in the public education side, but I do in fire, police, public works, roads, and streets and sanitation, utilities, those types of spaces.
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And again, that’s governed by the Illinois Labor Relations Act, which is modeled on the National Labor Relations Act. So, if you can’t find, for example, case law or you can’t find what you’re looking for in the Illinois Act, you look to the NLRA to look at that. The thing I think is most interesting about working for a public sector client is you’re answering to a bunch of different clients, essentially. Because the client is not just your village manager or your city administrator. It’s also your board members, your board of trustees, your city council. It’s also the actual public, right? It’s your taxpayers.
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So, you’re putting this interesting dynamic of we don’t want our taxes to go up, but we also want the best firefighters and the best police department. So, it’s an interesting balancing act. And again, pointing back to what I talked about earlier today was about Mike Richardson, who mentored me. He specifically taught me how to bargain in the public sector. He did largely a public sector labor practice. So, he took me to all these different negotiations. And I learned a lot about those types of negotiations.
[00:29:09]
I learned another very important thing is, which if you are a municipality, don’t have all of your contracts coming up at once because we represented a particular municipality, a particular city in Illinois, that had all five of their union contracts open at the same time. And I’m a very organized person. I like to keep very organized, but at some point in time I would sit down at the table and I’m like, who are we bargaining with today? But again, it’s like you’re answering to a lot of different clients at the same time. I find that aspect of it very interesting. I still do a lot of that work.
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And in Illinois, under the Illinois Labor Relations Act, we have interest arbitration, which we don’t really have much of in the private sector. So, for firefighters, police officers, anybody sworn, they don’t have the right to strike. And so, if they can’t come to an agreement, we enter into interest arbitration, which is basically baseball-style arbitration. For those of you who are familiar with baseball arbitration, it’s the employer makes their last best and final, the union their last best and final. And then the arbitrator picks one or the other on economic subjects. On non-economic subjects, they can split the baby, craft their own. But basically, they write the parts of the contract that you’re unable to agree on.
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So, that’s those are the big differences with public sector versus private sector. When I moved over to Ackerman, my practice did take a turn more deeply into the private sector, which was something I was very interested in growing that private sector side of my practice. So, I’ve gotten to do a lot more private sector work. Not that I didn’t do a lot before, but it’s focused more on the private sector I would say at this point in time.
Phil Wilson: [00:30:55]
Okay, cool.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:30:57]
You asked about another thing, but I can’t recall what it was I talked so much.
Phil Wilson: [00:31:02]
Well, I was like health care versus manufacturing maybe. Maybe just a little bit on that.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:31:09]
Sure. So, healthcare has always been a fairly organized unionized sector. They’re unionized at a much higher density than manufacturing than other sectors of other parts of the private sector. So, they’re interesting clients to work with. I actually consider doing a master’s of public health or hospital administration in addition to my law degree early on. My mother was a nurse. She’s retired now, but she was a nurse. I remember her working in hospitals. She eventually became a school nurse. She was in the teacher’s union as a school nurse. So, those kinds of settings really piqued my interest from a very early age, so I do like to work with that sector.
[00:31:51]
Manufacturing obviously is very different. It tends to be more traditional. But what we’re seeing Phil, and I know you’re seeing it as well, is the rise in unionization in not traditional settings. We’re seeing across the country tech companies, banks, very different types of unionization.
Phil Wilson: [00:32:14]
Coffee shops.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:32:14]
I’ve done coffee shop work. Not for the big one we’re thinking of, but I have done smaller coffee shops. And you have to throw your traditional anti-union or union busting, whatever you want to call it, your playbook out the window when you’re dealing with these different types of populations, because the same messaging doesn’t really resonate. For example, if you’re talking about a group of adjunct faculty at a university, you’re not talking about people who are working a machine. You’re talking about very highly educated folks with very strong opinions on these issues, who really make themselves very knowledgeable.
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So, you really have to have a different type of messaging and different types of conversations that you’re having. And universities and colleges also, they make very interesting clients because you have a diverse array of clients. It’s not just the president of the university. It might be the board, there are the various deans, provosts students, their parents. So, a lot of really super interesting issues bubble up when you’re dealing in the higher ed space.
Phil Wilson: [00:33:26]
Yeah. And I think that’s really even true now, even in manufacturing. You’re dealing with an audience typically where- I know in higher ed for sure, very left-leaning anyway, naturally sort of pro-union. Based on often no information or super low information about unions, how they actually work. But like you say, everyone has access to a supercomputer in their pocket and they can find whatever. You can definitely find a lot about unions, but most of the stuff that you find is going to be a lot of mythology, but it’s going to be very pro-union. It’s going to skim over the details of how it all actually works.
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And in those kinds of settings, to me the communication challenge is really more around, okay, well ask yourself some questions about how this actually works. Like, okay, I understand you think it’s a great idea and it sounds good but what are the steps that you go through to get from here to this agreement that you think is going to change everything to make it the rainbow that leads to the pot of gold? What are all the steps that get there?
[00:34:47]
Because smart people, once they start wrapping their heads around- and how long is that going to take? Are you actually going to be at the table? Who’s going to be there? And are they any good at this? Those are the questions that you really need to get people to start asking. Because once they do, they go, maybe this isn’t everything that it has been told to me it is.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:35:14]
Yeah, that’s a really great point, Phil. I mentioned some coffee shops. So, I represented a string of small coffee shops that were organized earlier this year. And we used a lot of the messaging that we did that we normally do. Things like the union. What they’re really after is your dues. They’re going to focus on dues checkoff and union security clause. And on average, it takes over 400 days to get to a first contract. Over a year. I can’t remember exactly what the number is, but in the four hundreds, I know that.
Phil Wilson: [00:35:49]
460 something. But anyway. It’s a lot.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:35:52]
Yeah, it’s not two weeks, which is what they’re being told by the union, or a month or whatever it is. And so, we used this messaging and it’s as if they just don’t believe us. And then we sat down for the first time with the union. They brought nobody from the bargaining unit to the table for negotiations and essentially said, in so many words- they said basically the quiet part out loud. They said, ‘As long as you give us dues checkoff and union security, we don’t care about anything else.’ Those exact words. And my client was practically in tears. They don’t even care about their employees.
[00:36:33]
And my clients do care about their employees. And so, they basically said to me, ‘Everything you said Amy was exactly what happened. It was played out exactly as you said.’ So, we know what the union’s playbook is. We just have to keep reformulating ours to get this messaging across about what it really means to be in a union. How do you get to that first contract? What happens if you have a disciplinary issue? How do these things all work? So, we need to educate the employees. And again, going back to HC, we need to be able to talk to employees about what these things really mean. Yeah.
Phil Wilson: [00:37:11]
And I do think in some ways, this massive increase in organizing activity and in employers getting organized. I think, over time, people are going to have an actual experience like what you just described and go, ‘This is nothing like what I was told. And. And I don’t like it. And I think that the people that sold me on this, lied to me, and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.’ And unfortunately, it’s really hard to get out of a union. And so, the people that brought it in will leave, and then the people that come later are stuck with it.
[00:37:59]
But I do think long term, there’s going to be a lot of stories of buyer’s remorse and a lot of stories of this isn’t really what people say it is. So, that’s not probably going to be too helpful for the long-term prospects of unions. But in the immediate term, everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:38:19]
Absolutely. And we’ve seen it already in some of these employers who are getting unionized in various different locations where employees are already trying to file decertification petitions, the unions are fighting them on those decertification petitions. And the board is ‘helping them fight these decertification petitions.’ They’re dismissing them left and right. They’re not processing any of them. So, to your point, once you’re in, it’s very, very hard to get out. We used to always say you can’t try the union on for size. It still holds true.
Phil Wilson: [00:38:55]
Well, I do feel like we owe it to employees to at least let them know that even if the board won’t let you have a decertification election. If enough of you can prove to your employer that you no longer want to have a union, oftentimes you can get either the union in a position where they just walk away, or the employer can at some point in time can tell the union that they no longer represent a majority of employees, that that’s been proven to them. So, don’t just let the board tell you no. There are other ways to go about it.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:39:32]
Exactly. There are other options.
Phil Wilson: [00:39:34]
All right. Well, we’re going to end on we always do something fun at the end. You live in. Okay. My favorite city in America is Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is where I live. My second favorite city is the city where you live, which is Chicago. So, we could go in a lot of different directions with Chicago stuff. There are a lot of TV shows that are set in or shot in Chicago. And so, a question for you. If you could be in any Chicago TV show, what would it be?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:40:10]
Well, first let me back up and say, I don’t think I told you this before. I actually went to Tulsa for the very first time this year.
Phil Wilson: [00:40:16]
Did you?
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:40:17]
Yeah, I did. I was very impressed. It was actually by way of a trip to Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is a story from another time. But I’m obsessed with the US Marshal service and the US Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, Arkansas. So, my husband indulged me and took me on a little jaunt to Fort Smith, Arkansas, which I highly recommend to anybody. The museum is amazing. The town is great. I also enjoy Tulsa very much.
Phil Wilson: [00:40:42]
Yeah, Tulsa is awesome. Next time you’re here, be sure and let me know.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:40:45]
I definitely will. But to answer the bigger question, definitely, the Bear is one of my favorite shows, I love it. I don’t know that I could work in the kitchen with Carmi. I think I would be so stressed out, but I just love The Bear. I love the way it portrays how vibrant the Chicago food scene is. I know we think of other cities as being real foodie cities. You know, New York City, San Francisco, etc. But Chicago is a true foodie food city. We are not just deep-dish pizza and broths and whatnot. We love our food. We really appreciate the fine dining and all the way down to the greasy spoon.
[00:41:29]
We have the most amazing taco joints. Everything. But I would definitely pick The Bear. I love that show. I love the high paced, the energy. But again, I could never work in that kitchen.
Phil Wilson: [00:41:40]
My wife and I have not been able to start season three. After that Christmas episode in season two, I was like, that’s literally the most intense 30 minutes of television I have ever experienced. It’s an amazing show. That episode is one of the most amazing pieces of TV I’ve ever seen, but super intense.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:42:10]
And I have to say, to me, one of the most amazing things is I think they use drones in the opening shots where they show all the scenes of the city, and it almost makes the city its own character in the show. They’re just beautiful, those opening shots, particularly the second season, those beautiful opening shots of the city of waking up in the morning and everything. I love it. It’s so well done.
Phil Wilson: [00:42:35]
I got to go back to my youth, but, I would love to be in the Blues Brothers. I don’t know what role I would play, but that would be a wild-ride fun movie to be a part of.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:42:54]
Absolutely.
Phil Wilson: [00:42:57]
Orange whip. Orange whip. Three orange whips. Well, Amy, it was really great to catch up. It was great to get to see you in person. And really glad you were able to join us for the show. We really appreciate having you.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:43:12]
Well, thank you so much for having me. I have enjoyed talking with you today, just as always.
Phil Wilson: [00:43:17]
Yeah. Okay. We’ll see you soon. Take care.
Amy Moor Gaylord: [00:43:20]
Take care. Bye-bye.
Phil Wilson: [00:43:21]
Bye.
In this episode of The Left of Boom Show, we are joined by Amy Moor Gaylord, a seasoned attorney with over 25 years of experience in traditional labor and employment litigation. As a partner at Akerman LLP, Amy’s extensive knowledge spans industries like healthcare, higher education, not-for-profit organizations, public safety, and hospitality. From handling complex National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proceedings to leading high-stakes collective bargaining negotiations, Amy brings a wealth of practical advice and expertise. Amy shares her unique insights on key labor law issues throughout our conversation, including recent bans on captive audience meetings and their potential impact on employers, emerging legislative changes, and strategies for navigating the ever-evolving labor landscape. Drawing from her early career experiences at the NLRB and her work in both public and private sectors, Amy offers invaluable advice for employers across industries. We also discuss sector-specific challenges, particularly within healthcare, and how Amy balances her representation of public and private clients. From her views on future labor law trends to her exciting projects, this episode is packed with insights to help employers stay ahead of the curve. To close, we have a little fun as Amy shares which Chicago-based movie or TV show she’d love to star in and the character she’d portray! Tune in for a comprehensive and engaging discussion on the current state of labor law.