Roughly 130 union members of three legal aid organizations continue to strike after most reached tentative agreements for new labor contracts.Screenshot taken from Instagram/UJCunion
By Noah Powelson
While the threat of a mass legal aid strike in the city has passed, over 100 attorneys and staffers at a trio of legal services providers have remained on the picket line with little hope of returning to work any time soon.
As of Thursday, bargaining negotiations have stalled at three city legal aid organizations, a week after the Legal Aid Society and several other larger public defender groups reached tentative labor agreements with their employers. At CAMBA, the Urban Justice Center and Goddard Riverside Law Project, roughly 130 attorneys and non-attorney staff enter their third and fourth weeks of strikes without any indication of a deal coming soon.
Adding pressure on the employers, dozens of New York City elected officials signed letters to CAMBA and Goddard to return to the bargaining table and offer their workers a better contract that includes a higher wage floor for paralegals, better cost-of-living adjustments, competitive attorney salaries and other union demands.
Currently at CAMBA, a nonprofit that offers a variety of social services, employers have sent their legal aid union their final contract offer and have not scheduled further bargaining sessions. The current offer is significantly below union demands and workers will continue to strike for the foreseeable future, according to union representatives.
A CAMBA union representative told the Eagle a strike fund was paying for their members’ expenses, but that that amount is well below what members were making while at work.
The letter from lawmakers was delivered to CAMBA’s management on July 28 and was signed by 25 elected officials, including Queens State Senators Kristen Gonzalez and Julia Salazar, Queens Assemblymembers Claire Valdez and Jessica González-Rojas, and Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán.
“Now more than ever, New York relies on our legal services workers to meet an affordability crisis and attacks on due process,” the letter reads. “We urge the leadership of CAMBA, Inc. and [CAMBA Legal Services] to stay at the table and do whatever is necessary to ensure that members of CLSWU can return to work with a fair and just contract. New Yorkers need them back on the front lines.”
CAMBA did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment.
The situation at CAMBA mirrors the difficulties striking members face at Goddard Riverside, nonprofit social service organization that operates housing and family programs, but also has its own law project focusing on tenant advocacy in Manhattan.
The letter to GRLP’s president was also signed by eight elected officials, including Manhattan State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Housing Linda Rosenthal. GRLP employs roughly a dozen legal aid attorneys and workers and their union was the first to go on strike in early July. Union members are about to enter their fourth week on the picket line.
“Each one of the Law Project’s staff has worked to provide vital services to our community members, including eviction defense, tenant rights education, one-shot deals, and client intakes that have prevented evictions in our communities,” the letter to the GRLP president reads. “These workers should have the financial stability to continue this work and the appropriate caseload amount to provide each client the proper care and attention they need.”
GRLP did not respond to an Eagle inquiry.
UJC’s union is the largest of the remaining three striking legal aid unions with roughly 70 members, and the only one whose employer solely offers legal services. While both CAMBA and GRLP provide a variety of public services around housing and family support, UJC’s primary service is legal advocacy for a variety of groups including street vendors, domestic violence victims and sex workers.
In a statement from UJC’s union, representatives said the last offer they received from their employers included a salary floor for non-attorney workers of $52,000. Unions at Bronx Defenders and NYLAG received an offer of $68,000 and $60,000 wage floor respectively when they agreed to call off the strike.
“Heavy workloads, low pay, and high staff turnover are undermining legal services for low-income New Yorkers,” a union representative at UJC said in a statement, “The strain doesn’t just affect workers; it directly harms UJC’s clients, who rely on the office for survival while facing housing insecurity, deportation, violence and inequity.”
Six other legal aid organizations – which included the Legal Aid Society, the New York Legal Assistance Group, Bronx Defenders, Office of the Appellate Defender, Appellate Advocates and the Center for Appellate Litigation – had all went on or threatened to go on strike but reached tentative agreements for new labor contracts with their employers. Currently, employees at these six organizations are back at work and voting to ratify their respective tentative agreements, but there is still a risk some may rejoin the picket line if union members vote down the new contracts.
By far the largest of these organizations is The Legal Aid Society, which employs roughly 1,100 city attorneys. The LAS union had scheduled a strike deadline of July 25 after they terminated their collective bargaining agreement, but a tentative agreement was made the day before the deadline and the strike was called off. The union members still need to vote to ratify the new agreement, and the threat of a mass strike could reshape if the members strike down the new contract.
LAS was expected to close their contract ratification by Thursday evening, and an announcement of the results is expected soon.
NYLAG, which employs 280 attorney and non-attorney legal aid workers, is expected to close their vote on Sunday, August 3rd.
