Education

University of Alabama School of Law (J.D.,1983)

Harvard University (B.A., 1980)

Experience

Jay Smith is a shareholder in Gilbert & Sackman, and joined the firm in 1993. He has represented labor unions and their members for over 36 years. He was previously a partner in the Birmingham, Alabama law firm of Cooper, Mitch, Crawford, Kuykendall & Whatley, and before that he was a jury trial plaintiffs’ and criminal defense lawyer for two years at Higgs and Conchin, P.C. in Huntsville, Alabama. Prior to that, just after finishing law school and passing the bar, Mr. Smith served for a year as a VISTA Volunteer, where his project was to launch the Old Firehouse Homeless Shelter in Birmingham, Alabama, which still serves homeless people today, thirty-eight years later. He comes from a working class family in Gadsden, Alabama.

Mr. Smith has represented the United Steelworkers International Union for almost his entire legal career, and serves as USW’s District Counsel for the eleven western states. He is also honored to represent other strong labor unions, including IATSE Locals 44, B-192, and 768, UNAC/UHCP, AFSCME, AGVA, UFCW Local 324, many USW local unions and other local unions. In addition to his representation of USW in eleven states, Mr. Smith serves as chief outside counsel for several unions in Southern California or the state. He appears regularly in federal and state courts, before the NLRB and PERB, before arbitrators, and in collective bargaining negotiations. He also represents plaintiffs in class action litigation, primarily in claims involving wage and hour laws. He has participated in special litigation projects in the firm’s Taft-Hartley/ERISA benefits practice. Finally, Mr. Smith frequently provides training in labor and employment topics to unions’ professional staffs, local union officers, and stewards.

Mr. Smith has a long history of successful bargaining and litigation in many tribunals for labor unions and their members. In litigation, he has won several hundred million dollars in back pay, employee benefits, and damages for his clients.

He secured injunctive relief for hundreds of retired industrial workers restoring health insurance that was abruptly cancelled by a bankrupt employer in a non-Taft-Hartley plan, piercing the corporate veil to secure liability against a solvent parent-company plan defendant. He used the doctrine of mutual mistake in contract formation to secure reformation of a collective bargaining agreement, securing over eleven million dollars in back wages for hundreds of union members. He secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in pension benefits for workers in both arbitration and federal court ERISA litigation, all in the non-Taft-Hartley context.

Mr. Smith has repeatedly enforced in federal trial and appeals courts the obligation of employers to submit their union disputes to binding arbitration, and has secured confirmation and enforcement of labor arbitration awards. He has also conducted hundreds of successful labor arbitration hearings, from discharges to facility-wide contract enforcement claims. Mr. Smith successfully petitioned a federal court to hold an employer in contempt for refusing to abide by a confirmed arbitration award.

He helped NLRB attorneys secure Section 10(j) injunctive relief against several employers in union organizing campaigns. Mr. Smith has represented unions, their members, and joint labor-management trust funds in bankruptcy courts across the nation, securing millions of dollars in pay and benefits for workers. He has won many unfair labor practice cases at the NLRB and PERB, winning millions of dollars in relief for workers. He has successfully represented unions in numerous pre-election and post-election hearings in representation matters before the NLRB.

Mr. Smith has successfully defended labor unions in scores of lawsuits and administrative claims, including fair representation claims in state and federal jury, non-jury, and appellate proceedings and at the NLRB, and has defended unions against discrimination and other employment-law claims in state and federal court and administrative agencies, including before state appeals and supreme courts. He has on many occasions represented unions as employers in dealing with their staff unions and other personnel issues.

Mr. Smith has concluded scores of bargaining tables, for first and successor collective bargaining agreements. In bargaining, he has served on many occasions as chief union spokesperson and on many others as co-spokesperson and legal advisor. He has provided successful counseling and litigation in courts and agencies to mount and win many strikes, and to turn many lockouts into victories against their corporate perpetrators.

Mr. Smith has represented unions in disputes over internal union elections and other union governance issues based on the federal Landrum-Griffin Act (LMRDA). These matters have included successful representation of an international union in a month-long federal court trial, a victory upheld on appeal. He has also represented a union in federal litigation brought against the union regarding a contested election, by the United States Department of Justice on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Mr. Smith has represented unions dealing with DOL investigators in several types of matters, including election investigations, corruption matters brought to DOL by our firm’s union clients to seek recovery of stolen assets, and CAP audits.

Mr. Smith has on many occasions represented international or other parent unions in placing local affiliates under trusteeship, and has advised them on and directly managed many of the complicated steps needed to navigate that process to a successful conclusion.

Selected Achievements

Lead counsel in a team of attorneys that took on the oil industry between 2008 and 2013 over meal period violations at California refineries. Gilbert & Sackman put over $65 million in workers’ pockets as part of settlements in the cases. Along the way, Gilbert & Sackman successfully certified multiple classes in hotly contested litigation in both federal and state courts.

Lead counsel in a series of class action cases enforcing California’s rest break laws against the oil industry since 2017. Gilbert & Sackman has collected over $50 million in wages owed to class members.

Lead counsel in a case involving alleged violations of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). Gilbert & Sackman prevailed after a multi-week trial in federal court, and secured a complete victory for the union at the Ninth Circuit.

Lead counsel in a successful pension case against a single-employer, non-Taft Hartley pension plan on behalf of workers affected by a plant shutdown in 2008.

Lead counsel in numerous arbitrations resulting in reinstatement and backpay for workers unfairly terminated or affected by company decisions in manufacturing, entertainment, health care, grocery, and other industries across the Southwestern United States.

Memberships

• AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance

• California and Alabama State Bars

• California State Bar Labor and Employment Section

• Los Angeles County Bar Association Labor and Employment Section

Selected Presentations and Publications

• Jay is a frequent lecturer in topics involving private-sector labor law, employment law and ERISA. He has spoken at seminars sponsored by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the State Bar of Alabama, the Orange County Industrial Relations Research Association, the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Cumberland School of Law, and Los Angeles Trade and Technical College.

• Contributing author of Employee Benefits Law, 2d Ed. (BNA and ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law, 2000)

• Lawyers Coordinating Committee (predecessor of Union Lawyers Alliance) of the AFL-CIO