Unions and Employee Organizing with Chris Baluzy

In this episode of the Rising Leaders of New York podcast, we welcome guest Chris Baluzy, a Partner at Cary Kane, practicing in the areas of Labor, Employment, and Employee Benefits Law.

Tune in to this episode as Chris shares insights into:

• Unions, what they are and how they work
• What he does to help unions in his role
• How arbitration works in the labor field
• Big companies setting up unions
• Common issues executives need to know about unions
• Benefit of companies to have a union

Christopher S. Baluzy is a Partner at Cary Kane, practicing in the areas of Labor, Employment, and Employee Benefits Law. On behalf of labor unions he arbitrates disputes, negotiates collective bargaining agreements and litigates in New York and federal courts. Mr. Baluzy represents Taft-Hartley employee benefit funds in collection work to ensure that employers properly make contributions to the funds.

Mr. Baluzy received a B.A. in Philosophy from the College of Arts & Science at New York University in 2006. He received a J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law in 2011 where he was Executive Articles Editor for the City University of New York Law Review.

Before joining the firm, Mr. Baluzy was an associate at the labor law firm of Pitta & Giblin as a law clerk at the labor law firm of O’Dwyer & Bernstien.

Mr. Baluzy is a member of the Bar of the State of New York. He is also a member of the New York County Lawyers Association as well as the Lawyer Alumni Mentoring Program at the College of Arts & Science, New York University.

Learn more about Chris Baluzy

Visit his website: https://www.carykanelegal.com/attorney/christopher-s-baluzy/

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-baluzy-b371a241/

About the Rising Leaders of New York Podcast

The Rising Leaders of New York Podcast is centered around conversations with today’s and future leaders of New York City, discussing the challenges and issues relevant to New Yorkers.

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Read the full transcript:

VOICEOVER ( 00:00:01): Welcome to Rising Leaders of New York with your host David S. Zwerin of Hill & Moin LLP. They present to you conversations with today’s and future leaders of New York City discussing the challenges and issues relevant to New Yorkers. You can find this show at www.hillmoin.com and on Youtube, LinkedIn, Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast and more. Now, here are the hosts of Rising Leaders of New York.

DAVID ( 00:00:38): Hello everybody. Thank you for joining me. David Zwerin here on this episode of Rising Leaders of New York. Um This is my opportunity where every episode I get to speak with people who are on the cutting edge of important issues, often legal that New Yorkers need to know about. And today I have a very exciting guest um joined by my old friend Christopher Baluzy. He is a partner at the law firm of Cary Kane. They practice in the areas of labor, employment, employment benefit unions on behalf of labor unions. He arbitrates disputes, he negotiates collective bargaining agreement and is a litigator in the state and federal courts of New York. Chris is a tremendously knowledgeable person in dealing with fighting for the rights of employees and members of unions and the extremely knowledgeable attorney. And I look forward to having a great conversation with him today. So Christopher Baluzy, thank you so much for joining me today.

CHRIS ( 00:01:45): Thanks so much, Dave. Very happy to be here. Thank you so much for those kind words.

DAVID ( 00:01:50): No problem. So you and II, I guess, can you and I have known each other for a little while but, , um, tell the, tell the people a little bit about yourself. Uh, how did you end up being a lawyer? How did you end up getting into, this particular area of law?

CHRIS ( 00:02:07): Yeah. So, um, my journey, first of all to, I guess law school start there, um, started, in college, um, kind of a cliche, I thought, ok, I’ll, I wanted, I really wanted to be a, a physician or a doctor. Uh, but I hated the, the lab portion of the, curriculum, um, for that. So, um, I switched to, um, wanting to do a different, a different, profession that was a law, you know, like I said, it’s cliche doctor or lawyer. Um, and, um, so I studied, in college, liberal arts, um, and then worked, at a big law firm as a paralegal, in, in litigation. Um, and those hours were very long, even as a paralegal because we were there as long as the attorneys were, were in the building basically. Um, and I said to myself, I’m going to be, you know, working this much and, and like, in an office like this for so long, I want to make sure I do something that I really enjoy doing. So it’s not so painful. Um, and at that time I thought it was going to be civil rights, um, anti discrimination law. And I went to, cuny law school, at that time when it was in Flushing, um, enrolled there, studied uh discrimination, um, title seven, anti discrimination, I should say, uh civil rights uh section 1983 cases really enjoyed it. Um And when I graduated, um I wanted to stay on the side of, of course, helping people. Uh that was the main motivation. Um, and I started working for a Union side law firm, uh called o’dwyer Bernstein on a uh project on a litigation that they were working on. They’re representing a, an airline union. Um, and, um, but I knew that that litigation may end and they wouldn’t need me. So, it did eventually end. And, um, I then went to work for another Union side law firm for a couple of years, um, and practiced in the, um, you know, representing unions, but also employee benefit funds for collections of monies that were owed to the, those funds which wasn’t very fun. Um, the union stuff that was, was much more interesting. Um, and, um, then I came here to Cary Kane. Um, and I’ve been here since January of 2015. Uh, so, gosh, eight years. Yeah. And, yeah, go ahead.

DAVID ( 00:05:04): So, Chris, you mentioned, you’ve been doing union side work for a little while, for, for those people who might not have a lot of experience dealing with, union litigation or uh negotiations or maybe even don’t have so much, have a lot of familiar with what a union is. Uh, give us a little idea like what exactly is a union? What does it look like? How is it formed? And uh why do, why do they need lawyers?

CHRIS ( 00:05:32): Sure. Exactly. Thank you. So, um, what is a union, a union um, represents workers um with respect to the wages, hours, working conditions of the employees of a, of an employer. Um, that is at its core, what a union does, a union doesn’t need to be, already preexisting to, to represent workers, the workers can form their own union. And the law defines that, not so strictly so that a group of workers uh can do that um in the nat under the National Labor Relations Act. Um So it’s a very powerful tool to um get better wages, benefits, working conditions. And so, like I said, that’s what the union does. It represents the employees, the union negotiates contracts on behalf of the employees with, of course, with the input of the workers, it’s not just the union doing it on its own. Uh It processes grievances, you know, resolves disputes. Uh Make sure, makes, ensures that there’s sound labor relations at the plant or at the facility, the store, whatever it is. Um And sometimes it’ll have to arbitrate disputes, come to a final and binding determination. Um But that’s arbitration. It’s not core litigation. Uh But still, it’s kind of like that, you know, it’s a, it’s a uh a formal process. Um And the union also can provide benefits to the workers through benefit funds that it um has input on uh health insurance pension. Um Sometimes legal funds where the union will help pay for legal services for workers, like for real estate or wills that sort of thing. So the union, the core issue, the core, the core, the essence of it being is to help the workers. Um and, and that’s its goal and um it’s very, uh it’s a very noble purpose.

DAVID ( 00:07:35): And what exactly, what types of uh of services does your firm offer? You mentioned like a lot of things union needs. What exactly does your firm do and what do you specialize in?

CHRIS ( 00:07:44): Right. So the union, so what we do is we represent unions as the institution. And so let’s start there. So we represent the union in contract negotiations to advise on, you know, what, what they should propose um what language, uh how language should read because after all, it is a contract that’s gonna to be read by lawyers. So we wanna make sure the language is, uh looks right. Um We help with, you know, stra strategizing about certain things, whether it’s union, elections, union, um grievances. Um We help the union process, election petitions with the NLRB.

DAVID ( 00:08:21): So if they want what, the NLRB, by the way, I’m familiar with, but many people probably don’t know what that is.

CHRIS ( 00:08:27): That’s fine. Yes. Uh The, the NLRB, uh it’s a federal government agency. Uh It stands for National Labor Relations Board and they have jurisdiction over uh primarily by over unions and employers um with respect to um all forms of conservative activity um strikes, elections um or elections to get rid of unions. Uh It runs the gamut. Um And so we represent unions uh with that agency uh and also for unfair labor practice practices. So, if an employer violates the National Labor Relations Act, uh we file that unfair labor practice charge and we also have sometimes defend a union uh in response to an unfair labor practice charge filed by a worker, usually claiming that the union didn’t fairly represent that worker. Um So that is, that’s, that’s so somewhat of a big portion of what we do. And we also represent the affiliated benefit fund. So we represent, uh we counsel to the trustees on those funds to make sure that the funds are, you know, doing what it should be doing um in, in administering benefits, giving out uh benefits, paying benefits, um collecting monies that are due to the fund. Um And that’s another part and we also sometimes represent individuals. So not just unions, we represent individuals for uh wage an hour cases or severance agreement negotiations. Um And let’s see, sometimes discrimination cases. Um So, so that’s another part of what we do, but a vast majority is representing unions and their funds. Uh And, and let me just say one more thing, Dan, I’m sorry, we only represent unions, we don’t represent management. Um We are entirely worker focused and union focused, right?

DAVID ( 00:10:28): So that was kind of getting to my original uh question when you talk about being a union side of lawyer on the other side, that management or the employer side of lawyers, right? And that, and that’s who you usually are if not adversarial within, trying to ensure that your sides uh rights are fairly represented in any disagreement or litigation or negotiation with management.

CHRIS ( 00:10:52): That’s right. And what makes what we do somewhat unique, you know, compared to uh a real, I guess litigation uh attorney like you are, is this the, this our representation is in the context of a relationship between our, the clients, between the union and the employer. And so what that means is we are going to see each other again, I, is the union side attorney. I’m gonna see that management side attorney again and it doesn’t make sense, you know, sometimes you got to, but it usually doesn’t make sense to try and kill each other, you know, on a, on a, on a specific issue because like I said, I’m gonna see this guy or this woman, you know, in the other, another week from now on a different matter. Um, and it’s a small world. So, um, it, it, it’s not the sort of situation where, like I said, you’re trying to kill each other where like on a,  a slip and fall case or, or tort case, um, you’re trying to, you know, kill each other and, get the best for your client, of course, but you might not see, you know, you’re not gonna see that attorney, you know, ever again and neither will your clients. That’s the other thing. Um, our clients are, are the respective management of the employer and the union representatives at the union. And so they’re constantly talking to each other, um, on various issues, you know, whatever it is and it’s always, and it’s gonna be about the, the terms and conditions of employment of the employees and administering a contract. So they’re always, you know, in constant contact. Um, so, um, it really requires a deft uh human touch, I think, to be,  a union side attorney and an employer side too.

DAVID ( 00:12:50): No, that’s a, you bring up a very interesting point and thank you for, I guess you, you referenced me what we, what we do here doing, the personal injury litigation. I don’t know that I would agree that I’m never going to see my adversaries again though. I think a lot of the same adversaries for a long time. Um, but whenever you see them, and they’re often, you often and basically almost always uh attorneys that work for insurance carriers. So you’ll always see them in a different capacity on behalf of a different brand new client with a completely different accident. Exactly. Right. But we have ongoing often in relationships. Sometimes we get a brand new attorney but it is a very different thing. I imagine when it’s not always litigation here, this is what we do. We take cases and we aggressively litigate to get the absolute best possible result we can for every individual client with their unique accident. And while I may see that attorney again, and we always want to strike that balance of being professional while fighting extremely hard and getting great results for our client, we’re never going to have that exact same situation and my client isn’t going to need to do ongoing business with an attorney for nationwide or, or, or, or any insurance company you might add. So I imagine that is interesting. You have to probably strike a very interesting balance when you’re not only litigating against the same pace that face has been doing transactional work over the years with

CHRIS ( 00:14:23): them. Yes. Exactly. Yeah, you, you summarize it quite well. Um, you are, you may be dealing with, you know, an attorney or, or management on multiple issues and on one you have to be very aggressive on the other. You, you know, depending on what leverage you have or what the, the nature of your claim or the controversy and others, you, you know, you, you can’t be that way. Um So it, it, you know, it, it, it’s, it changes, it’s very dynamic. Um um So, uh and, and I think that, that the reason for that is that it helps to maintain, you know, a good relationship between the parties, um which is so important so that the workers, you know, can thrive because it’s not good for anyone. If they’re, uh if there isn’t, you know, good labor relations between um union and management, um whether that’s, you know, on the union level or with the funds, like, you know, you want to make sure that the employers, you know, may have, may be great with the union, you know. Yeah, everyone’s getting paid. No one has any grievances, no, no accidents. Uh Everyone, you know, is, is getting the overtime that they should or whatever. But like, for example, if the employer is not paying the, the, the funds, the, the contributions, excuse me, it owes to benefit funds. That’s a problem for the union. Um So they gotta, you know, resolve that and the, and the funds will do that. Um And it’s all, you know, kind of interconnected. It’s an ecosystem. Um And uh our firm uh has its, uh its finger on, on each part of that

DAVID ( 00:16:02): and when issues do arise, how are, are they often resolved? Do you have cases that you’re taking to trials in front of juries or are you arbitrating? How does it work in this field?

CHRIS ( 00:16:15): Very rarely? Am I in court? Very rarely? Uh You are probably in court way, way, way more than I am. Um You, I’m sure you have me beat very badly.

DAVID ( 00:16:26): Um And not a competition. But thank you. That is true.

CHRIS ( 00:16:30): So, um for us, uh matters are, are resolved in arbitration and,

DAVID ( 00:16:37): and by the I, yeah, I assume a lot of our listeners, uh those who maybe are, find us on our websites or LinkedIn. A lot of people probably know what is arbitration, but for those who don’t, what is it?

CHRIS ( 00:16:48): Arbitration is private dispute resolution where you’re in a conference room, not a courtroom and there’s an arbitrator that’s judge and jury deciding your case. Uh for our cases, it’s, it’s a single arbitrator and the arbitrator is neutral. And he or she is there to decide whether the union’s grievance has merit and what the relief is and it’s 99% of the time. It’s the union that has a grievance. It’s really never ever the, the employer that does. Um And it’s a formal process, each side is represented by an attorney. There’s witnesses, there’s opening statements, there’s closing statements was cross examination of witnesses. Um, evidence is, is introduced, the rules are a little relaxed as far as hearsay goes and, and sometimes relevance of evidence. Um But it’s, it’s, it’s a real, you know, important process for the orderly resolution of disputes between union and employer. And it’s very important that arbitration is, and, and when I deal with it, um because that’s the quid pro quo, that’s the deal uh for not striking.  That’s how you resolve the dispute with arbitration, not with uh with the economic weapons of a strike or a lockout strike being when the union walks out that takes the workers out and they don’t work lockout being where the employer says I’m not gonna let the workers work and I’m going to, you know, cause them some economic harm by not paying them and locking them out. Um So the deal is ok. Well, we’ll arbitrate it. We’ll get a final and binding resolution from an arbitrator and there’s usually no appeal. Um There are grounds to overturn or the legal term is vacate an arbitration award, but it’s a very high bar. And um I’ve never seen a contract that allows for its own internal appeal mechanism. It’s final. And that’s a lot of what we do. Um, and we represent the workers in those hearings. We represent the, the union, of course. Um, and, um, and each side has to live with the decision good or bad.

DAVID ( 00:18:55): And are curiously, are, are these, arbitrations still, done mostly in person or the virtual, or how’s that working in this, new, much more virtual world?

CHRIS ( 00:19:08): We’re living in a lot of it is remote. What we have been doing is um like, I guess a hybrid approach where each side may be with its own at its like on a single screen. So like me, the union representative, the grievance would be in one room, the arbitrator would be on his or her own screen and then the employer would either be separated on its own screens, plural or in a single room and they’d be, you know, all together. Um I haven’t done an in person hearing. The last in person hearing I did was last January and the employer insisted on that because of the amount of documentation in the case, even though, I mean, it really wasn’t that much but um he, he really wanted it to be done in person. Um And so it was um and uh you know, sometimes it’s better to, to be in person when it’s a termination case, meaning someone’s been fired. And so the arbitrators ruling on whether that person and what whether the employer was right in firing that person. because this is in a sense, life and death, either I’m gonna be put back to work or I’m gonna be unemployed and I have to find a new job, which could be a very scary thing. And, um, the worker may feel more comfortable just seeing all the faces in person and, you know, you could see where people’s hands are, what they’re looking at where, you know, uh when you’re on Zoom, it’s, it’s a little bit harder. Um And there’s a little bit more of a trust issue and, you know, for me, that’s kind of easy like I’m used to it, but for work workers aren’t, I mean, we, you know, I, we, we do this all the time but the worker, this may be the first time ever. And so, you know, transparency is very, very important. Um So that’s what I found and let me just say one more thing about arbitration, unlike litigation, there’s really no discovery, discovery being like exchange of facts before the hearing. So you kind of know what each side is gonna say. So that you, you avoid these, uh quote unquote Perry Mason moments, um sometimes are Perry Mason moments in an arbitration because you don’t have that. Um There’s no depositions, there’s no real document requests or interrogatories. Um It’s, it’s, uh I’ve been heard, I’ve heard it described as rough justice. It’s justice, but it’s not, uh it doesn’t have all the trimmings of a real court litigation. Um But, you know, that’s how arbitration is, at least in the labor field. Sometimes you get more for private employment disputes. Uh But for what we do, no.

DAVID ( 00:21:42): How do you prepare a client for cross examination that an arbitration when you may be confronted with documents or issues? You didn’t know about how.

CHRIS ( 00:21:52): It could be hard, it flying at the uh the seat of your pants. Um And you, you are, you know, doing the kind of the, not the prep but the, the, the analysis in real time like OK, is this relevant? Is this, you know, off base is, you know, is this good for us, bad for us? And usually the clients will know already like what they’re gonna be asked about, especially if it’s like, you know, a fact dispute like where were you on state? What were you doing or where were you on the plant? Who are you talking to? Um whatever. Sometimes though there are curveballs. Um I had a case once where it was a uh discipline case and the employer attempted to introduce some blog posts. Um And I forget the re why they were in, attempted to be introduced, but I objected strenuously like this is totally I relevant. What does this have to do with whether this person engaged in, in the misconduct that the employer said he or she engaged in? And the, the, the arbitrator fortunately ruled in our favor and, and, disallowed, that evidence and which was a big win because arbitrators usually will say, well, I’ll let it in but give it the weight, you know, it deserves or the weight that I deemed it to be given. But here it was just a flat out. No. Uh, so that was, that was good. So, um, it’s, it can be difficult. In other words, it’s, it’s really hard to, to do that prep. Um And uh you know, sometimes it feels like not possible and we just got to go in and do the case and, and put on a better case than, than the uh the employer.

DAVID ( 00:23:32): I think you also earlier uh mentioned, your firm does some work with collective bargaining, right? That’s correct. Do you actually work in drafting the collective bargaining agreements?

CHRIS ( 00:23:45): Yes, we do. So that’s a big part of what we do is contract negotiations. And um what we do is we’re, you know, sitting uh across so to say from the employer. And by the way, those are also now a lot uh or done on zoom a lot of times instead of being uh you know, all together. Um But, you know, you’re sitting across the table and you’re listening to the proposals and you’re drafting the language that shows the intent of the parties. What do we mean when we say this at the table? What does that really look like. Now, that’s really important, you know, to get the language right? Because, you know, I may not be here someday, right? But that language may live on and neither will my counterpart. And so we gotta make sure it’s right to live on, you know, after we’re gone. Um And that, that reflects what the party is intended because if it doesn’t reflect what the parties intend, then you have problems, then you have disputes, you have arbitrations, you have disagreements and that we try to avoid at all costs. Um So that’s what I’m there for and also to advise on, you know, the legality of them, whether it’s under state law, like state, you know, sick leave, you know, which is prevalent here in New York, COVID sick leave, uh hours of work overtime, um workers compensation sometimes FMLA leaves um and the subjects of bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act. Um You know, what’s mandatory subject of bargaining? What’s permissive? When can the union say no to something? When, when can the employers say no to something? Um And advising on strikes and, and other uh concern activity, uh like hand billing, uh uh putting up a rat, a banner. Um It runs the gamut, you know, from the actual hard lawyer work of, you know, contract drafting to um advising on concerted activity. I think you may want to do uh in support of its demands.

DAVID ( 00:25:53): And Chris what are some of the issues you’re seeing uh these days with labor organization or collective bargaining or some of the things you mentioned, if you were like, had the opportunity to, to meet a union executive that you haven’t met, what would you be saying? Like, what are some of the issues they need to know about?

CHRIS ( 00:26:13): Right. So, um that’s an important question. I think the first thing I would say is a lot of the organizing seems to be going on at the ground level. You have the workers kind of organizing themselves where a national union is not coming in to organize. You have, for example, Amazon Labor union, that’s, that’s a union where the workers organize themselves basically. Um You have that at Trader Joe’s, um I think at a store in Massachusetts and, and in the Midwest, it might be Minneapolis, um Starbucks, those workers each organize, you know, the respective stores and I think they’re uh they affiliated with Sciu, but still, that’s, that’s ground level. That’s grassroots, same thing with Kickstarter, the first tech union or the first union at a big tech company. Um Those workers again organize themselves with like, so it seemed to me somewhat minimal input from um OPEIU which stands for the Office of Professional Employees International Union. Um And they’ve had remarkable success. Um a few years ago, you, you telling me Trader Joe’s to unionize Starbucks, I find that hard to believe. Um but Starbucks caught on like wildfire Amazon, they organized successfully the, the Staten Island Warehouse um Kickstarter, you know, uh they, they successfully organized that and reached the contract in June of 2022. Um So it’s really been uh tremendous and so um for those union leaders, I would say, you know, try and in some way, leverage that where you’re giving maybe more latitude to those workers and letting them run with it. But still, you know, being involved in and providing the support of the national or, or international with union representatives and legal support because, you know, those the, the independent unions, they don’t have any dues money coming in, they don’t have money to pay professionals to help. So it, it is important, I think still to, to affiliate and have that um that source of knowledge and, and other uh benefits that come with being, you know, part of a larger organization, a larger structure. Um So that’s one thing. Um And um I would say the other thing uh would be to keep pushing on. Um and this, you know, isn’t something that I’m so involved with, but just generally keep pushing at the state and federal level and also city with legislation that protects and helps workers. Um We have the COVID sick leave in New York State. Um We have legislation in New York State that uh now allows farm workers to unionize and that’s a big deal because uh farm workers are not allowed to unionize under federal law. Um, it’s only a steel law issue, so we have New York, California and I think Washington State, um, that allow that. Um, so that’s really great and that’s, you know, something unions push for, um, and, you know, higher minimum wages better, you know, workplace protections to raise the floor so that when unions demand sort of thing, those sort of things, wages better benefits, the floor is already, you know, lifted that high so that those demands aren’t. Um So, um, I guess seen as overreaching, you know, that they’re seen as reasonable. Um, so those are the, those are the big, big things and of course protection of pension benefits, um, and, and other benefits that, that the workers get, um, you know, make sure that those contributions are coming in and you get more contributing employers into those funds to keep those funds solvent.

DAVID ( 00:30:14): Um I’m not sure if I asked you this at the beginning, Chris, we talked a lot about all the things that unions should be aware of, like if they’re going to form and start making all these decisions, but, you know, lots of employees in this country don’t, aren’t involved in, in any of union. What is, what exactly is the benefit of union? Why would you be telling employees or or executives to be, to be doing these things and to be working with lawyers, you to create a good union to have a good collective bargaining agreement. Why, why is it necessary?

CHRIS ( 00:30:47): A union protects the workers, whether you are a cashier at Walmart or uh an attorney uh for some private company. Um, everything in between, um, all, all sorts of, of job titles and classifications and types of work, different industries. The union is there to help, to help you and to, and to preserve the, the, the wages hours, working conditions that you have and to make and to also make them better. Um, without a union without a contract, anything can be just taken away as long as it’s not illegal to do. Um And because most of us are at will employees, the, the employer can do anything it wants except for a legal or discriminatory reason. Um, you know, taking benefits away reducing your wages, uh firing you suspending you. Um, it’s all the discretion of management, all their sole discretion. The only way the, to have a check on that power besides just, you know, laws and regulations is to have a union with a union contract that puts in writing what management can and cannot do. And, um, it’s a tremendous force because of the reaction you get from companies when they hear the word union, it’s a four letter word. Um, they call in the cavalry to, to stop it at all costs. And that alone shows this must be good for the workers if they don’t want it that bad, uh with captive audience meetings, one on one meetings. Um, them constantly saying how a union can’t help. They can’t promise you anything. Why would you pay dues? Why would the company care what you do with your money? They, when would a company ever care what you do with their money except when a union is involved? Right. So, um, it’s, it’s a tremendously, uh good uh force in the world um and has lifted many people into the middle class and beyond and raised their station in life and gave them protections that they otherwise wouldn’t have. So, um that’s, that’s the upshot.

DAVID ( 00:33:06): So I was very excited to have you uh on, on the show Chris, because so much about what you do is, uh you know, a different aspect of kind of the work we do over here at Helen W fighting for the rights of injured workers. Uh You know, a lot of what you’re doing is trying to make sure that people can work and have a good, healthy, safe, fair, equitable working arrangement uh over the course of their career. And, you know, it sounds like there’s a lot of litigation, but also a lot of transaction negotiation to constantly making sure they have someone like you and your firm fighting hard for the rights so they can go to work. Um And I feel very passionate and happy that people like you exist. And uh you know, it’s my job, to my job to step in when they do get injured and can’t go to work anymore to make sure that their rights are protected and that if they, then hopefully they eventually can go back to work and if they end, they, they have people like you that have, a good job waiting for them with good benefits and if they can, hopefully they’re getting fair and reasonable compensation for the rest of their life. If they can’t exactly return to the good union that you help negotiate for them.

CHRIS ( 00:34:26): Exactly. Very well put. Yes. Yes, 100%. Um Right. So you pick up where we leave off in a wedding. Um We are here to represent the collective interests of all of the workers plural and attorneys like you are there to, to vindicate their individual rights. And um it’s, it’s uh very important, very important.

DAVID ( 00:34:54): Chris, if any of our listeners wanted to get a hold of you or your law firm, how would they do so?

CHRIS ( 00:34:59): Yes. You can call us at (212) 868-6300. That’s one way. And you can also email me at uh C like uh Charlie Balu, my last name B like boy, A Luzyy like Yankee at Cary Kane dot com. Carykane dot com.

DAVID ( 00:35:24): Chris Baluzy. Thanks so much for joining us here today. It was really a great, great pleasure getting to speak with you and, hear about all the great work that you do to protect the rights of workers when they’re not injured. We know that they’d be fighting for the rights. Uh, hopefully they get to have but if they don’t, then, we’re here to, to pick up the flag when they aren’t entitled to those, benefits at all. And, right, we really appreciate the, the work you do, on behalf of, of workers out there. For those of you watching, if you want to get in touch with me, my name is David Zwerin and I’m the Senior Trial Attorney at Hill Moin. And our focus is on construction accidents or premises liability cases where, where workers such as the ones that, Chris might represent, happen to have one of those serious injuries that someone may be at fault for whether it’s a violation of law or someone’s negligence. Um If you have any questions that, you’re entitled to significant compensation, whether you’re in a union or not, you can reach us at (212) 668-6000 or at hillmoin.com. Uh, Until then and, or until the next episode. My name is David of Hill Moin, and, my pleasure to speak with you about, these pressing legal issues and great guests like Christopher Baluzy and I look forward to the next episode. We’ll have another great guest with us on another episode of Rising Leaders of New York. Thank you.

CHRIS ( 00:36:52): Thank you so much, Dave.

VOICEOVER ( 00:36:56): You’ve been listening to rising leaders of New York hosted by David Zwerin of Hill & Moin LLP. You can catch prior episodes at www.hillmoin.com and on Youtube, LinkedIn, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing this show with others.