Pennsylvania Race Pits Corporate Defender Against Union Organizer
Ryan Crosswell, a Democratic candidate running for Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District, has insisted for months that he never participated in any union-busting campaigns as an attorney at the largest “union avoidance” law firm in the country.
But new documents obtained by the Prospect show that he undertook numerous anti-worker cases. During his three-year tenure at the notorious firm Littler Mendelson, Crosswell quashed workers’ claims of sexual harassment and discrimination for multiple clients, including the financial juggernaut Citicorp, now Citigroup; the multinational medical technology company Becton, Dickinson and Co.; fintech company Mediant Communications; and Sharp Electronics Corporation. He also defended Walmart against a Black customer who claimed that a manager discriminated against him and wrongly called the cops to kick him out of the store.
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Crosswell did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for his campaign refuted the idea that Crosswell was dissembling.
“The actual facts here don’t lie,” the spokesperson said. “Ryan worked early in his career at a very large law firm; he himself never worked on a case that involved union busting. He left that job over a decade ago to join the Department of Justice under President Obama. 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.”
Crosswell is running for a winnable seat held by Republican Ryan Mackenzie. His leading opponent in the Democratic primary is Bob Brooks, a Bernie Sanders–endorsed firefighter and leader in the state firefighters’ union. That makes the race particularly notable: a union leader against a corporate defender.
Brooks did not respond to a request for comment.
Crosswell’s Littler Mendelson cases reveal a record of defending bosses and managers against worker complaints.
Information about Crosswell’s corporate clients has not previously been reported. It comes after The Lever confirmed earlier this month that Crosswell worked for Littler Mendelson, a fact that local outlet The Keystone included in a subsequent report. Both followed a 2025 article in the Lehigh Valley News, about an event at which IBEW Assistant Business Manager Justin Grimshaw said that Crosswell had represented Citicorp and Becton, Dickinson and Co. in lawsuits against workers and was skeptical about his change of party affiliation, calling him a “lifelong Republican that suddenly changed his thinking and became a Democrat to run in our district … [and] to my knowledge, until recently, he never even lived here.”
At the time, Crosswell’s campaign manager, Noa Worob, said Crosswell had never worked on a case that involved union busting, a stance that he’s maintained since then, insisting for more than a year that he’s never participated in union busting. Grimshaw did not respond to a request for comment.
Since then, Crosswell has continued to enjoy his status as a media darling for his dramatic departure from the Trump administration and the Republican Party, after his boss demanded he and his colleagues drop a case against former New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He has won many admirers for that and is now the best-funded Democrat in the race, with $1.6 million in donations as of March 31. Mackenzie, the Republican incumbent, has $3.5 million.
Crosswell’s Littler cases reveal a record of defending bosses and managers against worker complaints, the Prospect’s documents show.
In 2012, he defended Citicorp against the claims of a sales representative in North Carolina, Taffy Lenay Buchanan, who alleged that her boss, Michael Boston, sexually harassed her every day, then fired her when she refused him.
The abuse began in August 2011, her lawsuit states, after Boston asked “if she would like to come to his club, the Boston House of Jazz, after work and after the club closes hangout [sic] with him further?” She said no, and he began a campaign of daily harassment “by over scrutinizing her work and thus creating an intimidating, insulting, and abusive work environment,” forcing her to take a leave of absence, the claim continues. Three months later, Boston fired her for making a mistake on her time sheet, which she said wasn’t true. She also said she wasn’t allowed to fix the mistake. She sued, arguing that firing her was obvious retaliation given that other employees had made mistakes on their time sheets and remained employed.
But she did not get her day in court because Crosswell successfully moved to dismiss her case and force her into arbitration. Citicorp has an employment arbitration policy, which Buchanan should have understood because it was in the company handbook, according to the motion Crosswell filed to dismiss the complaint and compel arbitration.
Arbitration policies are a get-out-of-jail-free card for companies that want to deprive workers and consumers of their rights, as the Economic Policy Institute pointed out a decade ago. Research shows that workers’ claims fail almost twice as often in arbitration as when they’re heard in federal court. Those who do succeed take home cash settlements that are thousands of dollars less than if their cases were heard in federal court. In other words, arbitration allows employers to continue breaking the law.
The documents the Prospect obtained also show that Crosswell represented multiple companies against workers who accused them of discrimination.
Crosswell represented the Sharp Electronics Corporation in a 2011 employment discrimination lawsuit from plaintiff Ronnell Davis, a Black man over the age of 40 who had been a sales executive for the company for more than a decade.
Davis alleged that his bosses, Mickloe Kullin and Larry O’Dowd, took away his sales territories and gave them to a younger white woman co-worker because the two had “preconceived notions” of how Davis had the “wrong face” for the job, his lawsuit states. Davis complained to human resources about that and other mistreatment because of his age and race. Bosses embarrassed and humiliated him during business meetings, threatened him with termination if he failed to meet sales goals, even though such a threat violated company policy, and denied him vacation even though he qualified for it, Davis claimed. After he complained, Davis said he was fired on fake charges of insubordination. Both parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal in March 2013, and the online court docket and documents did not indicate whether there was a settlement agreement.
In 2012, Crosswell represented Becton, Dickinson and Co. against plaintiff Joyce Alston, who had worked there since 2008 as a clinical trials and research assistant. According to Alston’s complaint, her bosses routinely required her to work more than 40 hours a week, without overtime, and to perform work outside of her job duties, including the work of employees who quit. She complained to her direct supervisor for more than a year that she was putting in significant overtime to keep up, the lawsuit states, but her supervisors failed to address the situation other than to repeatedly tell her that she was doing a “good job.”
The workload resulted in her developing “shooting pain” in her arm, which her bosses ignored, the complaint states. She was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and underwent surgery for it, after which her doctor placed her on family medical leave. When she tried to return to work a month later, her badge didn’t work, and she was subsequently told she was fired—a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2014, the case was reportedly settled at mediation and dismissed.
Mediant Communications was another client that Crosswell protected against workers, including Traci Crawford, who in 2013 filed a civil action for wrongful discharge, money owed, and negligence.
The primary for Pennsylvania District 7 is May 19. Brooks has a solid lead according to a poll sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of his endorsers, showing him with 24 percent of the vote; Crosswell was in fourth with just 9 percent. But more than one-third of respondents were undecided.
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