Lawyers and other Bronx Defenders employees are planning to unionize, potentially adding to the growing ranks of legal services nonprofits that have organized in recent years.
Workers at the public defense non-profit, which represents low income people in New York, announced their plans to the organization’s management on Friday morning. The Bronx Defenders is one of a handful of nonprofit organizations that contract with New York City to provide public defense services, and the third to unionize.
An “overwhelming majority” of approximately 270 union-eligible employees have signed pledge cards to join the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325, according to Naima Drecker-Waxman, a program associate in the Bronx Defenders’ immigration practice. She and other organizers have called on management to recognize the union voluntarily rather than forcing a union vote.