Urban Justice Center (UJC) legal aid workers are taking part in a coordinated work strike organized among the 12 chapters of the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 (ALAA), whose contracts expired on June 30, 2025.
The union, which represents 2,100 workers in New York City, is using a rolling strike strategy among its chapters while negotiating with the city’s various legal aid organizations. It is trying to improve union members’ healthcare and retirement benefits, and set a standard of tiered salaries for the attorneys, paralegals, social workers, interpreters, advocates, and other support staff working at the those organizations.
New York City’s legal aid organizations were created in the 1960s, in the aftermath of the 1963 Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which required legal representation for all. Since NYC already had an established Legal Aid Society, it provided funding for that agency and its nonprofit offshoots to handle legal matters affecting the public. Legal aid workers were later unionized under ALAA Local 2325.
So far, ALAA’s coordinated campaign has worked at a few locations. Legal Aid Society members voted to ratify a new labor contract on Aug. 4, while workers at the Bronx Defenders went on strike from July 18 to July 21 after reaching an agreement that increases wages for various staff positions.
“The Bronx Defenders’ mission is to provide the highest quality legal representation to people living in one of the most policed, surveilled, and under-invested counties anywhere in the country,” said Juval O. Scott, executive director of the Bronx Defenders, in a statement announcing the end of the strike at her agency. “As public defenders, this work is more than a profession –– it is a calling. And valuing the work of those who serve that calling is imperative if we are to continue to meet our obligation to zealously represent the people and families of the Bronx … we must never abandon the people we serve, and it is in this spirit that both sides reached resolution.”
Currently, staff at UJC, CAMBA Legal Services, Inc. (CLS), and the Goddard Riverside Law Project are the only workers still on strike.
At UJC, management has refused to address several core issues, Calvin Harrison, a member of the Urban Justice Center Union (UJCU), told the AmNews. “I believe that at the end of the day, what we’re asking for is more than reasonable,” Harrison said. “We’re currently the lowest-paid legal services shop in the city, and we are asking for a wage floor of around $60,000. We’re asking for fair protections from layoffs and discipline. We’re requesting the same benefits that other organizations similar to ours have.
“Our hope is that management will agree to our demands … the negotiations have been ongoing since late February.” He noted that the group first sent their demands to management around Feb. 14. “And we’ve made significant movement as a union to come to an agreement.”
The union is still negotiating the number of caseloads housing attorneys should be assigned. Many housing attorneys have complained about having to handle more than 40 cases a month.
Since the 2017 establishment of the city’s Right to Counsel law, which says that all tenants have a right to legal representation in housing court, NYC has been providing specific funding to legal aid organizations so they can pay for lawyers’ services, but attorneys’ workloads have been overwhelming.
Harrison said another central sticking point is that management is not willing to agree to a tiered salary structure for staff in its anti-incarceration Freedom Agenda department. Under a structured agreement, each worker would be placed on a scale based on their years of experience and would receive the same compensation for the same work and level of experience.
Requests by the AmNews for comments from Urban Justice Center management regarding the ongoing union negotiations went unanswered.
When legal aid workers go on strike, they’re looking to improve their work conditions, but Harrison said it’s also important to remember that their clients are affected by these actions.
“Obviously, in our position as providers of legal services, as community organizers, as advocates, it’s a difficult decision to be out [on strike] because there are obviously clients and community members that we want to be serving,” said Harrison. “But we do believe that a work stoppage is the only way to create a better system.”
Harrison noted a high turnover rate at UJC and that with around 65 people, only a few have been there more than three or four years. “No one is served well by a place that is staffed by people who can’t make a career and have to leave their job,” he said. “We believe that while being out on strike is a difficult decision, this is the right step to take to create a more sustainable workplace that will be able to ultimately do better work and serve our communities better under a fairer, stronger contract.”