The Bronx Defenders Union - UAW Local 2325 is on ULP Strike!
*** PRESS ADVISORY ***
Bronx, NY — Today, the Bronx Defenders Union (BxD Union), a wall-to-wall union consisting of over 260 workers under UAW Local 2325, Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA), began its strike for the first time in their Union’s history. This comes after The Bronx Defenders Executive Management, under the advisal of outside general counsel, Sedreddine & Whoriskey, LLP and Kauff McGuire & Margolis, LLP, rejected the Union's July 16th proposal that ensured all BxD workers receive modest salary increases and a living wage floor for all staff. BxD’s failure to bargain in good faith has resulted in BxD Union filing an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge and is currently on ULP strike.
Though BxD Union's Collective Bargaining Committee made significant compromises in the hopes of averting a strike, BxD Executive Management refused to counter, stating they “don't have any more money to offer to bargaining."
Such claims are questionable on their face, however, where BxD:
Has yet to "open the books" or share its full financial records with the Union, despite repeated Union requests;
Recently awarded middle management staff a $7,500 salary increase and an additional step;
In FY 2024 alone, reported revenues exceeding $65 million and key executives' total compensation approximated $2.5 million;
Has accumulated expenses to pay outside law firms and arbitrator fees after committing clear contract violations and unfair labor practices in the suspension and termination of BxD union members as well as the denial of equal and fair hiring opportunities; and
Has done little public advocacy to demand increased funding for constitutionally-mandated and City-guaranteed essential legal services from the Adams' administration compared to the Union’s efforts.
BxD must allocate more of its budget to meet the Union’s demands. BxD’s refusal to counter indicates an unwillingness to reach a fair contract that ensures a living wage for BxD workers as well as consistent legal representation for poor and working class New Yorkers. For years, BxD Union members have demanded that BxD mobilize its resources to ensure the City provides additional funding to its multiple defense projects yet have been repeatedly told it was too risky to do so. ALAA-UAW Local 2325, the Union’s Local, has engaged in a concerted lobbying campaign to call on City officials and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) to provide essential legal services funding to assist organizations like BxD in ensuring a living wage floor. BxD Union members have also shared successful budget advocacy strategies directly with BxD Executive Management and advocated for long-term, joint budget advocacy efforts since as early as November 2024. BxD ignored that Union feedback and then instead suspended and fired the union member messenger without just cause mere days before the Union’s contractual right to strike took effect.
Financial transparency, accountability, and pay equity for ALAA workers is imperative. BxD Union workers’ decision to strike was not taken lightly. But we know firsthand what is necessary to provide critical legal and social services in the long-term and with accountability to the people we defend every day. BxD Union workers themselves must be able to afford to stay in the work of defending New York City's poor and working class communities and those we may call current and future “clients” – people who often come into our care and responsibility not by choice, but because they cannot afford an attorney when facing some of the most traumatic, destabilizing moments in their lives, including eviction, family separation, deportation, prosecution, incarceration, and homelessness. Any person facing such destabilization in their lives needs stable advocates on their side.
New York City is facing the reckoning of an affordability crisis that has been deepening for decades. It was ongoing when former Mayor Giuliani first unionbusted our predecessor and mother Local, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys in 1994. Today, over 30 years later, BxD Union—more than 260 workers in the Bronx, of the Bronx, and for the Bronx—rise in solidarity from the ashes of Giuliani's disgraced unionbusting legacy to demand investment in the Bronx, in NYC’s poor and working class communities, and in essential legal services workers who are on the frontlines in defending our communities.
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Press Contacts:
Claire Gavin, cgavin@alaa.org
Sophia Gurulé, sophiagurule@pm.me