AAFE & NYLAG Contracts Ratified!
We’re excited to announce that members at two of our chapters ratified first contracts this week!
Friday, our 224 members at New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) ratified a 2-year contract with 86% of members voting and 98% voting YES. The contract includes salary increases, a ratification bonus, retro pay, just cause protection and grievance procedure, frozen health insurance contributions for the first year, greatly improved leaves, job security, health and safety protections, and a contractually-enshrined committee to address race, diversity, equity and inclusion issues. ALAA represents all NYLAG workers, including financial counselors, development and administrative staff, paralegals and attorneys.
On Tuesday, our 18 members at Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) unanimously ratified a contract through 2022 with significant salary increases, just cause protection and grievance procedure, employer 403(b) contributions, improved leave time and health insurance, tuition reimbursement, job security, health and safety protections, additional holidays and early release time. AAFE is our first non-attorney chapter, representing counselors and advocates for tenants, seniors, immigrants and other members of the Asian American and Latinx communities.
Congratulations to our members at AAFE and NYLAG and thank you to the bargaining committee members who spent countless hours meeting, planning and negotiating contracts that will dramatically improve our workplaces and expand member rights. These chapters will soon be electing delegates to our ever-growing Joint Council and their elected chapter chairs will join ALAA’s Amalgamated Council.
Additionally, Regional Director Beverly Brakeman sent the following message to our members at NYLAG:
Welcome to UAW Region 9A. My name is Beverley Brakeman and I am your elected representative to the International UAW's Executive Board. Our Region is one of the UAW's most diverse, representing more than 32,000 workers in New England, New York City and Puerto Rico.
We are legal aid and legal services advocacy lawyers and staff like all of you at NYLAG, skilled trades and manufacturing workers, auto technicians and autoworkers, casino dealers, technical, office and administrative professionals, graduate student workers, adjunct and non-tenure track faculty and post-doctoral researchers at institutions of higher education including Columbia, Harvard, NYU, Teachers College, the New School and Barnard, municipal and Commonwealth employees, cultural institution and non-profit professionals, print, direct mail and bookstore employees including The Strand, and more.
You join a Region steeped in a commitment to working together for justice and combatting systemic racism, gender and LGBTQ+ bias and discrimination. You join us at a time of reflection and change as we work together to further improve the tools of the trade union movement - mobilizing for stronger contracts that reflect our commitment to justice and equality, organizing new members to build worker power, advocating for laws and policies that reflect our values and fighting to elect candidates who will represent our values in Congress and statehouses across the region.
We are loud and we are proud and we never back down.
Your local union leaders at UAW Local 2325 Association of Legal Aid Attorneys are experts in their field, committed and engaged activists for justice, and real leaders in the Region. You are in good hands.
On behalf of all Region 9A members, I welcome you to our family and invite you to engage in all of our work. Be active, speak up, speak out, and stand with us as we fight and vote like our lives depended on it to win back the Presidency and US Senate.
In Solidarity and Peace,
Bev