{"id":306932,"date":"2026-07-27T19:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306932\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T19:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:36:10","slug":"bronx-defenders-union-walks-off-the-job-joining-ongoing-strike-of-attorneys-who-represent-court-clients-that-cant-afford-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306932\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx Defenders union walks off the job, joining ongoing strike of attorneys who represent court clients that can\u2019t afford to pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet another union representing public defenders representing clients who cannot afford attorneys in the city\u2019s justice system has gone on strike.\n<\/p>\n

Around 300 staff with the Bronx Defenders<\/a> Union walked off the job on Monday \u2014 the third such guild to strike this month over economic demands on behalf of its lowest-paid workers.<\/p>\n

The move adds further strain on the city\u2019s court system. On Friday, 120 staff members of the Harlem-based Neighborhood Defender Services announced they were going on strike. <\/a><\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Defender Services<\/a>, which covers both Brooklyn and Queens, ended a five-day strike with a tentative contract agreement last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

For the Bronx Defenders, Monday\u2019s picket line outside its South Bronx office was deja vu; it was the second year in a row that the Bronx local has gone on strike after it became, in 2025, the first New York City criminal public defender union to do so in more than 30 years.<\/a> Their coverage area overlaps with the Neighborhood Defender Services, which serve Bronx Family Court in addition to Manhattan Criminal, Family, and Immigration Courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re telling them we\u2019re ready to do this for a week, for a month, if it means that each one of our colleagues can live with dignity,\u201d said Conrad Blackburn, the Bronx Defenders attorney who returned to the firm after losing a Harlem Assembly seat primary in June.<\/p>\n

The line of Bronx staff, joined by other members of their parent union, The Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys UAW Local 2325<\/a>, stretched around the block, with chants and signs that targeted management.<\/p>\n

When Bronx Defenders Union members voted to authorize a strike, members blamed management\u2019s economic proposal around non-attorney roles, such as investigators, advocates and administrators, as a major part of the stalemate in negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cManagement\u2019s proposals are an obvious attempt to pit workers against each other,\u201d said bargaining committee member and Criminal Defense Practice attorney Emma Caridad Perez in a statement.<\/p>\n

Bronx Defenders management defends its offers to union<\/p>\n

The Bronx Defenders Executive Director, Juval O. Scott, offered annual cost-of-living raises of 3% for advocates and investigators, which she said was designed to steer a larger share of those raises to attorneys. Scott said that attorneys\u2019 pay comparable to other city legal providers had made it increasingly difficult to retain that part of the organization, conceding that all the staff all deserve to be paid more than they are today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree with unionized staff on that fundamental principle,\u201d Scott wrote in a statement about the strike. \u201cWhere we differ is on how to use the limited funding available to us fairly and responsibly at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the picket line, Michael Gradess, an immigration practice administrator, and Flora Sugarman, a civil practice social worker, said that they didn\u2019t come to the decision to strike lightly but that leadership had dismissed their demands to keep pay increases equivalent between attorneys and other types of staff. Sugarman said the response struck her as hypocritical since the organization prides itself on a holistic model.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see the organization, boasting that and using that to fundraise, but then now wanting to pay attorneys a lot more than other advocates, and that\u2019s just not what this wall-to-wall union is about,\u201d Sugarman said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Councilmember Justin Sanchez joins the Bronx Defenders\u2019 strike.Photo by Emily Swanson<\/p>\n

South Bronx City Council Member Justin Sanchez joined the workers on Monday in calling this proposal a form of dividing the workforce against itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand in solidarity because we won\u2019t be broken across lines. We won\u2019t put support staff against paralegals against attorneys,\u201d Sanchez told the crowd of workers.<\/p>\n

Gradess said the union is hoping management returns to the bargaining table soon after the union issued a round of counteroffers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been told that no amount of withholding our labor, no amount of striking is going to change their minds, so we\u2019re here to prove that that\u2019s wrong. We hope that they will actually call us back to the table because it\u2019s their turn,\u201d Gradess said.<\/p>\n

So far, the Office of Court Administration has indicated that the courts across the city remain fully open and that it is \u201caware of this situation and is in contact with our partners in the city and the public defender organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we always hope that our courts and those they serve experience no disruptions, our entire judicial system remains committed to ensuring full operations should any arise,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bronx Defenders Union members target management during their second strike in two years.Photo by Emily Swanson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yet another union representing public defenders representing clients who cannot afford attorneys in the city\u2019s justice system has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,90638,116138,60990,116139,116140,42340,116141,116142,115689,9,24,63,116143,113339,116144,116145,129,131,130,116146,116147],"class_list":["post-306932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-bronx-defenders","tag-bronx-justice-system","tag-brooklyn-defender-services","tag-cost-of-living-raises","tag-court-system-strain","tag-labor-negotiations","tag-legal-aid-workers","tag-legal-workers-pay","tag-neighborhood-defender-services","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-courts","tag-public-defender-strike","tag-public-defense-funding","tag-south-bronx-protest","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-uaw-local-2325","tag-union-labor-dispute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}