The chapters for the Center for Appellate Litigation, Urban Justice Center, Office of the Appellate Defender, Goddard Riverside Law Project, Appellate Advocates, New York Legal Assistance Group and Legal Aid Society have all authorized their bargaining committees to call a strike if they deem it necessary, according to an announcement from the ALAA Wednesday. All groups saw participation rates in at least the 90th percentile, with the proportion of "yes" votes ranging from 88% to 100%.
The ALAA announced one day later that the Bronx Defenders had followed suit, with 94% of members participating and 97% voting to authorize a strike. They are scheduled to hold a picket Wednesday afternoon.
The polls opened last week as multiple chapters reached the end of their collective bargaining agreements on or around the end of June. According to the ALAA, collective bargaining agreements covering more than 2,000 of its members expired at midnight on June 30. This sectoral bargaining strategy means that failure to reach a contract could lead to simultaneous work stoppages by thousands of legal and social service workers in the area.
The union has more strength in numbers this year, with more workplaces joining the fold. The staff at the Office of the Appellate Defender, New York City's second-oldest public defense office providing appellate and post-conviction representation to indigent clients in Manhattan and the Bronx, announced plans to join the ALAA earlier this year. Staff at the Appellate Advocates did the same last September.
Staff members at the Urban Justice Center recently managed to rebuild their union, which the ALAA says "existed in name only" one year ago. The shop first unionized in 2009, but 12 years went by before it bargained for its first contract. Around the beginning of this year, the union announced that it had switched from being represented by the National Organization of Legal Services Workers to representation by the ALAA. Its authorization vote passed with 99% participation and 98% voting in the affirmative.
Many of the unions' members have cited caseloads and economic issues as top concerns. New York State Assembly member and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has thrown his support behind the shops, calling the workers "the last line of defense for New York City from Trump" in a statement last week.
Mayor Eric Adams "has the ability to avert a strike here and the courts being shut down by paying these workers what they deserve," he added. "If he doesn't, I will proudly stand with these brave workers on day one of their strike on the picket line."
The ALAA, part of the United Auto Workers, represents chapters at more than 30 nonprofits. It was founded in 1969 to represent staff members at the Legal Aid Society, whose chapter on its own represents nearly 1,100 attorneys. With 99% participation and 91% voting in the affirmative, Legal Aid Society Attorneys United authorized a strike for the first time since 1994, when then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to blacklist any attorney who remained on strike from working for the city. ALAA members voted to end the strike shortly after.
According to Legal Aid Society Attorney-in-Chief and CEO Twyla Carter, ALAA staff attorneys have received or have been offered baseline salary increases equivalent to 17%, on top of retention bonuses, since she took leadership in August 2022. Under management's proposal, she said, attorneys with four to 20 years of experience would receive a salary increase of more than 7% on average.
--Editing by Robert Rudinger.
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