Members of The Bronx Defenders Union (BxD)–UAW Local 2325 have returned to work after an 11-day strike. Management reached a tentative three-year contract agreement with the BxD late last week.
The tentative agreement, announced Aug. 7, ended a BxD work stoppage that began July 27 and became the latest of several public defender strikes to hit New York City this summer. BxD Union members had authorized a strike after a July 12 vote that 92% of members voted for, and 95% approved a strike if needed.
Workers said they walked out because they wanted wages and benefits that would keep the Bronx Defenders team whole: attorneys, social workers, investigators, advocates, and administrative staff working together under the same holistic defense model.
Management said the new tentative agreement raises compensation for all staff roles, establishes new starting salaries and scales, expands leave, increases student loan support and retirement benefits, adds compensation for investigators, advocates, and arraignment work, and provides a three percent annual cost-of-living adjustment.
The deal now goes to union members for a ratification vote. The date of the union ratification vote had not been set early this week.
The BxD strike was rooted in pay, retention, and whether the organization would keep an interdisciplinary model for its staff. Union members argued that management’s push to separate attorney and social worker salary scales would weaken solidarity inside the office.
Before the agreement was reached, BxD members said separate salary scales for attorneys and social workers had become a major issue in negotiations. In an Aug. 6 statement, management said the union had accepted separate scales after more than 14 hours of bargaining over two days, and that management then agreed to meet the union’s proposed salary scale for administrative and support staff, to increase social worker salaries again, and to preserve other benefits. The final Aug. 7 announcement said the tentative deal includes $95,000 for first-year attorneys, $91,000 for first-year social workers, and $70,555 for first-year support and administrative staff.
Bronx Defenders Executive Director Juval O. Scott said in a statement that she was “thrilled that we have found a path forward.” She said the agreement meets management’s goal of raising pay across the office and strengthening recruitment and retention. “These investments will strengthen the shared purpose that brought us all to The Bronx Defenders: standing beside individuals and families across the Bronx when they need us most,” Scott said. “The people we serve deserve an office that is strong, united, and prepared to fight for them without exception.”
Conrad Blackburn, a staff attorney in The Bronx Defenders’ criminal defense practice, told the Amsterdam News one of the hardest parts of the agreement was accepting that “the attorneys and social workers are going to be on different salary scales.” He said he was not in the bargaining room and did not know all of what led to that concession but understood that “there were long protracted negotiations between the bargaining committee and management,” and that management eventually returned with numbers “that I think the bargaining committee felt was acceptable.”
Blackburn said the agreement also preserves important non-economic protections, like the office’s work-from-home policy, which he described as “still mostly intact,” except for people in their first year after an initial six-month in-person period. “I think it was management moving on some of the non-economic issues and some significant increases in the salary that led to where we are,” he said.
Blackburn said the walkout was difficult because public defenders wanted to be in court and with their clients. “Definitely nobody wants to be on a long, protracted strike,” he said. “What we saw mostly were people standing in solidarity with each other across the board.” BxD members, he said, understood the strike as part of the same fight as their client work: “the best way to really do that is for us to fight for each other so that we can be able to work in working conditions that are conducive to that.”
After 11 days on the picket line, Blackburn said that workers were eager to return to work because client representation had suffered during the walkout; members returned tired but ready. “Despite being tired, despite being out for eleven days, people showed right back up to work and got back to doing what we do best, and that’s advocating and serving the people of the Bronx.”
