Legal Aid Society, attorneys to continue contract negotiations as union considers strike

The Legal Aid Society and its unionized lawyers will continue negotiations this week and return to the bargaining table on Thursday as the union considers a historic strike that could impact courts across the city, the head of Legal Aid’s union, Jane Fox, told amNewYork on Tuesday.

The union’s contract expired Tuesday at midnight. Though the contract remains in effect after expiration, the union can now trigger a strike, which the union’s members authorized Sunday evening in advance of final negotiations. Negotiations on Monday continued up to the midnight deadline, according to Fox.

“Progress has been made on non-economic demands and some benefits but wages and retirement still remain and the City and Legal Aid still need to find additional funding to make sure we can reach agreement,” Fox wrote in a Tuesday statement to amNewYork.

The union is calling for better pay and lighter workloads amid a rising cost of living, staff departures that leave more cases to remaining attorneys, and a hesitancy from New York City’s government to meet the level of support requested by Legal Aid. The union has been in active negotiations since March, and Legal Aid came to its attorneys with a final offer on Friday, which Fox said was “extremely disappointing.”

“The union and our members are seriously evaluating whether we will need to set a strike deadline but we continue to negotiate in the hopes of reaching an agreement,” Fox wrote in her Tuesday statement.

If Legal Aid’s chapter of the union, Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys-UAW 2325, triggers a strike, its 1,100 will walk out, a move that could grind much of the city’s criminal defense work to a halt. The Legal Aid Society provides free legal services to New Yorkers in need of representation who cannot afford their own counsel.

“We continue to bargain in good faith and look forward to meeting with the Union on Thursday,” Twyla Carter, attorney in chief and CEO of Legal Aid wrote in a Tuesday statement to amNewYork. “We remain committed to reaching a fiscally responsible resolution that makes a career at Legal Aid desirable and sustainable.”

In its final author, sent to the union of Friday and made public by Legal Aid, the organization offered an average 7% pay increase for lawyers who have been with Legal Aid for four to 20 years. The union has concerns that Legal Aid’s offer is not adequate for less experienced lawyers and that the suggested pay increases do not keep up with inflation or New York City’s rapidly increasing cost of living.

In a Monday news release about negotiations, Carter noted “decades of underfunding” from the city’s government as the reason that Legal Aid is less able to provide competitive salaries, calling on the union to “stand with us in this fight for our shared interests of livable wages, as our dedicated staff attorneys have long foregone far higher salaries in the private sector to serve New Yorkers.”

Fox and the union have urged Legal Aid to put greater pressure on the government instead of urging the union to agree to a deal that its members deem inadequate.

A strike at Legal Aid would be the first of its kind since 1994, when lawyers walked off the job over low wages. The dramatic labor battle led to then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani terminating the city’s contracts with Legal Aid and hiring replacements for the lawyers on strike.

Noah Pransky, Chief of Public Affairs for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, wrote in a statement to amNewYork that the OCJ values “the work Legal Aid lawyers do to ensure equal access to justice, often for the most vulnerable New Yorkers, by advocating for their clients’ rights and helping them navigate the legal system.”

“The city already funds their cost-of-living adjustments, which support wage increases consistent with the citywide collective bargaining pattern,” Pransky wrote, noting that Adams has added $20 million to support funds for legal service providers. “To minimize disruption to the justice system, we continue to work with our other legal defense partners to prepare for any potential challenges and impact of a strike.”