NEW YORK—New York City’s court system faced a potential shutdown on July 1, as its legal aid attorneys voted 91%-9% to authorize a strike. Their current contracts, covering almost 2,500 members in various units, expired on June 30, and their union, Auto Workers Local 2325, could let them walk as soon as the next day.
“Mayor [Eric] Adams and the City Council can solve this. The time to fully fund legal services is now,” the local posted on Instagram. “Our members are here to give our clients what they deserve: Experienced advocates who relentlessly pursue justice on their behalf. Only by improving our working conditions can we fulfill that promise and obligation to the city we love.”
The attorneys showed their stuff to the public, as at least 170 took turns walking on an informational picket line in 90+ degree midday heat outside the court system’s offices at 55 Water Street in Lower Manhattan on June 30.
“The contract ends tonight,” their tweet said. “After decades of wages that don’t keep up with inflation, we’re done being priced out of the job we love.” If the attorneys are forced to walk, it would be their first strike since 1994.
Local 2325 represents some 3,000 legal services attorneys not just in New York City’s five boroughs, but for more than 30 civil rights and legal aid organizations, stretching from Nassau County on Long Island to the east northwestwards to the Orange County Legal Aid Society, and north to the Schenectady County Legal Aid Society.
But the center of the strike was with legal aid offices in New York City, where members toil for low pay and face other problems, which picketers made clear on a union video.
“This is about legal aid attorneys and other legal services workers being able to earn living wages that keep us in these careers while providing essential legal aid services to all New Yorkers,” one man said. Added a woman attorney: “A fair contract means a meaningful salary so that people who make it can stay in this job long term.
“It’s also about fairness once you’re in the job, and decent working conditions, and fairness in hiring procedures. It’s about everything,” another woman summed up.
One woman walking the picket line showed why New Yorkers must rely on legal aid attorneys so much, unless they’re part of the city’s financial and commercial elite.
“We do not believe you cannot afford to pay our salaries when what we are asking is just a fraction of you paid the victims of the NYPD,” she chided city officials. Like other large cities with often-abusive police forces, judges have forced New York to fork over millions of dollars to victims—defended by Legal Aid attorneys.
While Mayor Adams has adamantly refused to meet the attorneys’ bargaining table proposals, the leading contender to succeed the embattled mayor, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, who calls himself a Democratic Socialist, stands with them—and has often walked their picket lines. UAW Region 9A, which includes Local 2325, was the first union to endorse Mamdani.
Mamdani also put the strike into a national context, calling the legal aid attorneys, formally the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys, “the last line of defense” for poor New Yorkers and New Yorkers of color threatened by the GOP Trump regime in Washington, D.C.
“These 2,000 ALAA UAW 2325 workers are the last line of defense for New York City from Trump, so much so that I hosted a press conference about Trump-proofing the city at their local union office,” Mamdani said.
“They keep our most vulnerable New Yorkers protected in our courts. Mayor Adams has the ability to avert a strike here and the courts being shut down by paying these workers what they deserve. If he doesn’t, I will proudly stand with these brave workers on day one of their strike on the picket line.”
“Our employers need to provide our members with a livable wage floor, annual wage increases that prevent attrition, and workloads that allow for the best quality of representation for our clients,” said Lisa Ohta, the ALAA president. “Our members fight every day for New Yorkers, and this campaign is as much a fight to improve our working conditions as it is to guarantee justice for our clients. If our employers refuse to meet our demands, we are prepared to strike to get the wages we need to stay in the jobs we love.”
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