Monday, July 20, 5:30-6:30PM: Workers at New York Immigration Coalition (@NYICUnited), an umbrella policy & advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, went public with their union on June 9th with 82% of workers in support, asking management for voluntary recognition to join OPEIU Local 153.
At the time of the announcement, 20+ NYS legislators sent a letter asking management to honor New York City’s Local Law 2021/087, which requires human services contractors to negotiate a Labor Peace Agreement (LPA) with the Union, providing a path to recognition outside of the federal government, as a condition of receiving city funding.
After initially agreeing to negotiate a voluntary recognition agreement, management walked this back and retained Kauff McGuire & Margolis, a union-busting law firm. The firm is now challenging 36% of the bargaining unit’s eligibility—excluding entire departments such as communications and development, justifying many of these exclusions by designating them as “conflict of interest” or “director-level” titles, neither of which are exclusionary categories under the law.
On Tuesday, July 7th, the workers met with the employer to continue voluntary recognition negotiations. At this meeting, management refused to engage in discussion over the scope of the unit and walked out. Instead of negotiating over eligibility, NYIC management would rather introduce the Trump administration’s NLRB into this process, posing additional risks for the organization given that the Trump administration has already identified NYIC on its target list to probe due to the nature of the work.
Join the union's rally on Monday, July 20 after work to demand that management voluntarily recognize the union and all 50 workers who should be in it without any further delay and let the real bargaining begin, drop the RM Petition with the NLRB so that workers do not have to go to an NLRB hearing, and drop the union-busting law firm KMM! RSVP here! If you can’t make the rally, please send a letter to management here!
