Walkouts by several member shops of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys leave New York City without hundreds of its public interest attorneys and advocates after many of the shops' collective bargaining agreements expired on or around the end of June. (iStock.com/Stella_E)
The move leaves all eyes on the ALAA's largest shop — nearly 1,100 unionized members of New York Legal Aid — which has announced a strike deadline of July 25.
The Center for Appellate Litigation union said on social media Thursday that its managers have rejected proposals on salary floors, cost of living increases and remote work provisions for support staff, among other matters. They said the most recent offer they received would increase their workloads and, while coming close to their salary demands for attorneys, client advocates and social workers, leave office services workers behind.
"What an underfunded public defender's office means for staff is that they are not paid what they deserve for the exceptional legal representation provided to our clients and their workloads do not match their salaries," CAL said in a statement to Law360 Friday. "Even constrained by our funding, we offered as much as we could to increase the salary scales across the board. We offered a very generous [paid time off] policy and remote work option. To encourage retention and help those near the point of burnout, we offered a paid sabbatical. Throughout the bargaining process we made numerous concessions and very few demands. We put forth a workload proposal that we feel is necessary to ensure that all of our clients receive the excellent representation they deserve."
In another statement Friday, Juval O. Scott, the Bronx Defenders' executive director, said her organization offered to lift the lowest salary for administrators, investigators and advocates by 11.4% and approximately 5.5% year over year for lawyers and social workers, on top of an annual longevity increase of $3,000 for all union members after eight years and a daily rate for attorneys on arraignment shifts.
"I'm proud of what we were able to offer," she said. "We worked hard to get there, applying all available city funding and making difficult decisions around staffing to bring our salaries closer to our staff's worth in a way that would not jeopardize the quality of legal representation we provide. But the union's latest counterproposal requires an additional $600,000 that we just don't have without additional city funding. With valid concerns around workload and maintaining the highest quality services for the people we represent, we cannot responsibly offer more."
The Bronx Defenders Union said Thursday that it did not receive a new counter to its latest proposal during the final bargaining session before the strike.
"Bronx Defenders management continues to deny fair wages for all our members and to undervalue the critical work of fighting everyday for our clients and for communities in The Bronx," the union wrote on Instagram.
The OAD union reported Thursday that their managers offered a pay scale increase of just 1% for the first two years, despite the current contract providing for 3% annual raises. The union said it offered to drop its demands for better free speech protections — a point of contention for many ALAA shops after the October 2023 attack on Israel — but declined their managers' counteroffer to accept its terms in exchange for a one-time bonus.
The OAD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many of the union shops are still at odds with management over a variety of economic and noneconomic issues, including the cost of living, workloads and speech protections. The ALAA has received the support of NYC Assemblyman and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who made an appearance at a union rally earlier this week.
"You are the people that keep families together," Mamdani told the crowd. "And so it is incumbent upon every single one of us to stand with you so that you can continue to afford to do this work."
--Editing by Drashti Mehta.
Correction: A previous version of this article used incorrect pronouns in reference to Scott of the Bronx Defenders. The errors have been corrected.
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