Legal Aid Attorneys Picket for a Fair Contract

More than 1000 Legal Aid Society attorneys and allies held pickets outside their offices in all five boroughs of New York City on Wednesday, demanding fair wages after seven months without a contract. For 20 weeks, LAS has failed to make any meaningful economic offer while workers continue to struggle with high caseloads. Workers are leaving jobs they love because they cannot afford to stay. Instead of addressing significant attrition by paying workers a living wage, management has cast blame in every direction except where it belongs —with them. Legal Aid attorneys are members of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA)/UAW Local 2325.

“It's really disgusting that we're even being put in this situation, to be always trying to survive, scraping by with a law degree and with the amount of experience that we have,” said Pauloma Martinez, a criminal defense attorney who's worked for the Legal Aid Society in Queens for a little more than a dozen years, told the Queens Eagle. “It just really goes to show the value that's put on our work as defense attorneys – in terms of how the city, how the state and how management at Legal Aid does not value our work, does not value our labor, and actually, is just stealing our labor,” Martinez added. “That's really what it comes down to.” Read more here and follow the ALAA members' fight on Twitter!