Bargaining 2024-2025 Updates

(Group photo of LSSA 2320 Members Post-Picket Action 12/19/2024)

Bargaining 2024-2025 is underway!

Below is information for LSSA 2320 Members to stay informed on Bargaining with LSNYC and how they can plug into the Contract Campaign.

 

Member Education & FAQ’s

Decoding Management’s Proposals:

Strike Preparation:

Bargaining Dispatch & Latest Update from Bargaining Team:

1/30/2025 | 1/31/2025

We had two bargaining sessions on Thursday January 30th and Friday January 31st. Here are our updates from bargaining this week:

Open Bargaining

The  team proposed to management, and followed up on, 2/11 from 1:30-4:30pm and 2/13 from 1:30-4:30pm as dates for open bargaining. Management has not yet confirmed these dates but we wanted to give you a chance to pencil them in!

Management’s Presentations & Counters

Management submitted counters on the following, which you can read here: LSNYC Proposals – 1.30.25.pdf

  • FMLA paperwork requirement (under Sick Leave)

  • Grievances

  • Discrimination/Harassment

  • Vacation

Our Presentations & Counters

We presented on the following counters:

Management indicated we are “very close” on DACA/TPS. We await a written response from them. Management did not have any position to offer on the remaining counters as of yet.

We also had extensive discussion on probation and we are working on a counter. We orally requested information on law graduates and bar admission, and we await them from management

Management Refuses To Release Manager Salary Data

Management “Actively Engaged” in Multitasking During Bargaining Sessions

Contract Campaign Committees:

Are you ready to take action for a fair contract?

📝 Sign up for a committee! 📝

  • Activism – meets Thursdays at 1 pm. Contact Alex J.

  • Communications – meets Fridays at 11 am. Contact Corinthia C.

  • Outreach/Contract Campaign – contact Ghislaine V. and Jim M.

  • Education – meets Fridays at 1 pm. Contact Allison H.

    🔴 Wear Red on Wednesdays! 🔴

  • Remember to wear red or your union shirt on Wednesdays, and our actions to stop work from 1-2pm every third Wednesday.

    Help us get a fair contract!

Bargaining Timeline:

2/5/2025

Open Bargaining Dates Confirmed!

We have seen the amazing energy from you all and the support from our allies at this week’s pickets.  Keep it up!

At yesterday’s session management accepted our proposed opening bargaining session (via zoom) dates:

Tuesday: February 11, 2025, 1:30pm-4:30pm

Thursday: February 13, 2025, 1:30pm-4:30pm

Keep an eye out for the link to the Zoom in your emails.

2/2/2025

Strike Authorization Approved by LSSA 2320 Members after Vote

Your participation in this vote has been tremendous.  Your energy and voices make it loud and clear to management that you will fight for the contract you deserve:

TOTAL VOTES (436)

YES – 406 (93.12%)

no – 30 (6.88%)

What’s next:  We will inform LSNYC of our deadline to complete negotiations. As LSNYC has been slow to move on our demands, this vote demonstrates our willingness to exercise our right to strike, which can help us reach an agreement.

Keep the momentum going!

1/30/2025 | 1/31/2025

We had two bargaining sessions on Thursday January 30th and Friday January 31st. Here are our updates from bargaining this week:

Open Bargaining

The  team proposed to management, and followed up on, 2/11 from 1:30-4:30pm and 2/13 from 1:30-4:30pm as dates for open bargaining. Management has not yet confirmed these dates but we wanted to give you a chance to pencil them in!

Management’s Presentations & Counters

Management submitted counters on the following, which you can read here: LSNYC Proposals – 1.30.25.pdf

  • FMLA paperwork requirement (under Sick Leave)

  • Grievances

  • Discrimination/Harassment

  • Vacation

Our Presentations & Counters

We presented on the following counters:

Management indicated we are “very close” on DACA/TPS. We await a written response from them. Management did not have any position to offer on the remaining counters as of yet.

We also had extensive discussion on probation and we are working on a counter. We orally requested information on law graduates and bar admission, and we await them from management

Management Refuses To Release Manager Salary Data

Management “Actively Engaged” in Multitasking During Bargaining Sessions

1/22/2025 | 1/24/2025 

Topics Discussed at the January 22 Bargaining Session 

  • Completing the presentation of Section 14.3(H)(2), Translation and Interpretation –carried over from the 1/17 session
  • Section 4.9, Alternative Work Week  (regarding a 4 day, 35 hour work week) 
  • Section 12.9, Supervision and Evaluation 
  • Section 17.3(A)(7) , Cell Phone Reimbursement
  • Section 5,7, Retirement (including retiree healthcare and retirement payouts)
  • Expand Salary Scale up to Step 40
  • Section 3.4, Hiring of Temp Workers
  • Section 1.9, Full Pay and Release Time for Union President and Delegate At Large

 

Topics Discussed at the January 24 Bargaining Session 

 

1/17/2025

Topics Discussed at the January 17 Bargaining Session 

  • Early Closing for Holidays (but not Juneteenth, says management)
  • Temperature, Water and Toilets (we have a tentative agreement!)
  • International Attorney Step Placement 
  • FMLA Leave (management needs a dictionary again)
  • Remote Work (yes to making it part of the contract instead of a side letter, no to more days)
  • Management’s Salary Offer – Retro Raises and City COLA Funding (management’s arguments against retro fall apart if you look at them closely—actually, if you look at them at all)

 

1/9/2025 | 1/10/2025

Management’s Presentations & Counters

 On Thursday January 9, and Friday, January 10, management presented responses and counters on the following demands:

  • Flexibility in Scheduling Practice
  • Staff with DACA/TPS Status
  • Breaks
  • Interpretation and Translation
  • Workloads and Caseloads
  • Specialist/Coordinator Differential (“Bump”)
  • Salaries (Across the Board Raises and Salary Floor) 
  • Health and Safety
  • Numerous other demands relating to annual leave, sick leave, health insurance, and other topics, all of which they again rejected

You can read all of their counters and responses here: LSNYC Counterproposals – 1.9.25.pdf and LSNYC Proposals – 1.10.25.pdf

Management’s Financial Counter: Enjoy Your Crappy Raises!

On Friday, management came back with a slightly different financial offer in response to the union’s counteroffer of December 24. They are now offering:

For salary scales A to F (that’s about 80% of our staff):

  • 6.25% raise for contract year 1 – starting ONLY after bargaining is done, with NO raise retroactive to the start of the contract in July 2024
  • 2% raise for contract year 2 (no change from their last offer)
  • 2% raise for contract year 3 (no change from their last offer)

For the lowest paid scales, they are continuing to push a watered-down version of our demand for an immediate $62,000 salary floor for all staff:

For salary scales H/H1(K):  

  • 8% raise for contract year 1 (no change from their last offer)
  • 4% raise for contract year 2 (no change from their last offer)
  • 3% raise for contract year 3 (no change from their last offer)

For salary scales I/J:  

  • 10% raise for contract year 1 (no change from their last offer)
  • 5% raise for contract year 3 (no change from their last offer)
  • 4% raise for contract year 3 (no change from their last offer)

 

On January 9, we discussed the salary counteroffer that we served on December 24, and presented on most of the economic proposals that blanket management rejected at our December 18 bargaining session:

    • Longevity Differential
    • 403(b) Contribution Increase
    • 403(b) Request for Proposals
    • Increasing the Specialist Bump
    • LSAT Course Reimbursement and Leave Time
    • Expense Reimbursement (including supper money, child/elder care reimbursement)
    • Eliminating the 1% Health Care Contribution
    • Improving our Health Reimbursement Accounts
    • Increasing Educational Loan Reimbursement
    • Fertility Treatment and Assisted Reproductive Technology
    • Financial Assistance for Adoption and Surrogacy
    • Additional Annual Leave Days for Senior Staff
    • Removing the cap on Vacation Day Payouts for Departing Staff
    • Improving Sick Leave Payouts for Departing Staff
    • Additional Sick Leave Days for Senior Staff
    • COVID Sick Leave
    • Bereavement Leave 
    • Parenthood and Maternity Disability Leave
    • Paid Sabbatical Leave
    • Part-Time Work Schedules
    • Malpractice Insurance
    • Calculating Increase for Promoted Legal Workers

We did not get to discuss other retirement-related proposals, but we intend to discuss those at an upcoming bargaining session.

Management claimed they had to give a blanket rejection of dozens of our demands because they didn’t have our salary counter-offer yet, and because we didn’t give them “presentations” about each demand. But their response to our salary counteroffer and presentations was to just reject most of those demands again on January 10:

  • Longevity Differential
  • 403(b) Contribution Increase
  • Increasing the Specialist Bump
  • LSAT Course Reimbursement and Leave Time
  • Expense Reimbursement (including supper money, child/elder care reimbursement)
  • Eliminating the 1% Health Care Contribution
  • Improving our Health Reimbursement Accounts
  • Educational Loan Reimbursement
  • Fertility Treatment and Assisted Reproductive Technology
  • Financial Assistance for Adoption and Surrogacy
  • Additional Annual Leave for Senior Staff
  • Removing the Cap on Vacation Day Payouts for Departing Staff
  • Improving Sick Leave Payouts for Departing Staff
  • Additional Sick Leave for Senior Staff
  • COVID Sick Leave 

Management and their lawyer still complain that the union has too many demands, and that we have to tell them which demands they can ignore.  We expect them to once again reject the demands they rejected before.

Union’s Counterproposals and Responses

On Friday, January 10, we served management with counterproposals and responses for the following demands:

  • Remote Work
  • Temperature, Water, and Toilets
  • Reasonable Accommodations
  • Holiday Office Closure
  • International Attorney Step Placement
  • Protecting Staff with Mental Health/Substance Use issues from Unfair Discipline
  • Management’s Sick Leave Demand (taking away FMLA sick leave if staff don’t do paperwork)
  • Management’s Bar Exam Demand (subjecting law grads to discipline if they don’t finish their bar application within 3 months, among other things)
  • Management’s Demand on Grievances

12/24/2024

This is the last dispatch of 2024, and while things are winding down for the year, we’re gearing up to return to the bargaining table in 2025.

The Bargaining Team wanted to close out the year with a financial update. We finalized our financial counter-proposal’s primary demands, which includes four points that we served on management:

  • Across-the-board raises of 15% in year one, 8.5% in year two, and 9% in year three (down slightly from our original demand of 15/10/10);

  • Adding a 1% step raise for all steps that currently do not have a raise;

  • A $62,000 salary floor for our lowest paid members; and

  • Retroactive pay to July 1, 2024 (in contrast to management’s offer, which is not retroactive to July 1, breaking with past bargaining practice)

We’re grateful for the work our members have put towards creating a meaningful contract campaign, and in particular want to shout out the activism committee and shop members citywide who staged a powerful picket at the MLS gala on short notice, as well as the many shop members from other boroughs who joined in!

12/17/2024

Management’s BLANKET REJECTION of 20 Union Demands
Management made a sweeping announcement that “at this time” they are rejecting all of our demands that they consider to be “financial”—a list of 20 different demands from our members.  Management is complaining that they don’t have our counteroffer to their first financial proposal on salaries – but they now refuse to even talk about everything from bereavement leave to assistance for adoption, surrogacy and ART, to LSAT reimbursements for legal workers, to social worker malpractice insurance, to supper money.

We presented on:

  • Notice of step placement (Management agrees to this demand.)
  • The team had planned to discuss a number of other demands today, including cell phone reimbursement; assistance for fertility, adoption, and ART; the translation/interpretation and specialist bumps; short- and long-term disability insurance; and student loan reimbursement, but given that management had already announced that they rejected those demands, we decided not to waste our time, ended our meeting with management, and devoted our day to meeting as a team.

Management’s other counterproposals and responses today:

  • DACA
  • PIPs
  • Layoffs
  • Workloads 
  • Attorney Caseloads and Intake Relief
  • Office Space
  • Process Servers and Clerk Messengers

You can read management’s official responses here:
LSNYC CounterProposals 12.17.24

12/13/2024

Management presented several counter-proposals on:

  • Early closings before some holidays
  • Job descriptions, particularly for the Executive Secretary
  • Free speech
  • Step placements, including for internationally-trained attorneys

You can read them here: LSNYC Proposals – 12.13.24.pdf

Other official management responses:

  • Summer Fridays: rejected, because they will not agree to a 32-hour work week and think we can’t properly serve our clients if we close early on Fridays.
  • Union involvement in grant negotiation: they did not have language.

We presented on:

  • Protections for staff with DACA/TPS
  • Fund for medical equipment/devices not covered by insurance
  • Employees with substance use or mental health issues will not be subject to the PIP process
  • Reasonable and equitable workloads
  • Court and intake coverage for attorneys
  • Attorney caseloads
  • Intake relief
  • Staffing
  • Office space and assignments

11/22/2024| 12/03/2024 | 12/04/2024

“We had 3 sessions on Friday, November 22, Tuesday, December 3, and Wednesday, December 4. Our upcoming sessions for 2024 are December 13 and 18. We are still finalizing schedules for January and February, and we aim to wrap up bargaining by the early spring. Management served us with several counter proposals, which we’ll link to and discuss in more detail below.

Here’s a quick summary of each major issue:

  • Management created a misleading “bargaining updates” page on the LSNYC website.

  • Management wants work from home to be as unequal and micromanaged as possible.

  • Whenever possible, management wants to pit and divide support staff from case handlers (attorneys included).

  • Management is pretending they did not agree to layoff protections that they agreed to (and our members ratified) in 2021. It would be funny if it weren’t so disturbing.

  • The bargaining team eagerly seeks feedback from members on temperature/water/toilets, fire safety, and workday breaks; see below for more.”

11/13/2024 & 11/18/2024

“We had sessions on November 13 and 18, and have another session scheduled tomorrow (Friday, November 22). Management served us with several counter proposals, which you can read here and here, and which we’ll discuss in more detail below!

This is along update, so here’s a quick summary of each major point:

  • Management seeks to eliminate the second step of our existing grievance process.

  • Management proposed an inequitable and rigid work-from-home policy.

  • Management is trying to sugarcoat their demand to increase all probation to 6 months, by offering to only impose it on new staff (and probably anyone who transfers or is promoted to a new LSNYC position).

  • Click here for background information about the City’s recent “COLA” funding increase.

  • Recent news about LSNYC having problems collecting money from the City *does not* affect our financial demands or our need for fair raises.

  • Get management a dictionary, because they think “at least 20 annual leave days” means “less than 20 annual leave days.”

  • And updates about the anti-discrimination policy and 403(b) committee.”

10/29/2024

“The week had our third meeting with Management on Tuesday, October 29, 2024. Management gave us the impression that they have yet to read our demands in their entirety, as they want us to provide them with a list of our priorities so they can focus on those. It is clear that this is one of their tactics to keep control of the flow of bargaining. We think their strategy is to reduce our right to strike by pushing an agenda to bargain demands related to wages, hours, and working conditions first, and leaving everything not related to those subjects last. We are trying to take control of the agenda and decide what gets bargained first and last. Additionally, their counsel is dominating the discussion despite not being familiar with our CBA.

Additionally, Management has proposed that our next negotiation session be on November 18, 2024. We have proposed a meeting for the week of November 11 and await their response.

We discussed the following:

403b Committee: We thought this demand would be easy because LSNYC’s officers (meaning Shervon and Kirsten) have a fiduciary duty to ensure that our retirement benefits are competitive and maximized. However, Management did not want to agree to two additional meetings a year, which would happen between our quarterly meetings with Gallagher (LSNYC’s financial advisors) and Empower (the company that managers our 403b plan). These meetings would allow the Union and Management to meet without the interference of any third party to discuss issues such as a request for proposals (RFP) for new companies to manage our 403b plan, with the goal of getting lower rates. LSNYC last did an RFP about nine years ago, though the Department of Labor recommends that RFPs be done every 3-5 years. Thus, LSNYC is long overdue for one and needs to do its fiduciary duty. This failure impacts staff and Management as we all have the same retirement plan.

Lactation: We informed Management that though LSNYC recently updated its office policy to comply with recent changes in the law, we want it reflected in the CBA as the current language is insufficient.

Contract Clean-up: It is clear that Management did not review the document. We clarified that there were no substantive changes to the CBA as the focus was to remove outdated language and ensure consistency in terms/language.

Discrimination/Sexual Harassment: Management provided the team with updated language to the current policy. The language makes the policy consistent with current laws. They did include a substantive change in the amount of days needed to conduct a thorough investigation. The team is reviewing the document.”