A new federal lawsuit reveals that union activists created a distressing and aggressive atmosphere for Jewish colleagues, filled with anti-Israel rhetoric, despite claiming to remain neutral regarding the Gaza War.
According to the lawsuit filed by the Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, attorneys and workers from the NY Legal Assistance Group and its union, A Better NYLAG, were accused of placing signs in workplaces and wearing buttons with provocative statements like “Intifada Now” and “Resisting Colonialism is not Terrorism.”
The group contended that these messages endorse violence against Israeli Jews and discriminate against Jewish employees, as stated in a detailed 20-page complaint submitted to the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Opportunity Commission.
“These signs are having the discriminatory effect of pushing Jewish people and/or Zionists out of these spaces,” one lawyer wrote in a March 21, 2015 email to the group. “As a Jewish person, I should not have to work in such close proximity to signs that direct hatred towards me.”
A Better NYGLAG, which is a chapter of the Association of Legal Attorneys/Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers union, receives $40 million in government funding a year to provide legal services to the poor residents, including migrants. It also receives support from Jewish groups such as the UJA Federation of New York.
The legal assistance group, which employs about 350 lawyers and other staffers, issued a neutrality rule in May of last year barring posters and other material about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the Jewish state.
A memo on the rule emphasized the need to promote a “welcoming” and “inclusive” environment for all employees, no matter their views on the conflict.
But the union protested, filing a complaint with the labor board in June, claiming NYLAG was suppressing the free speech rights of its pro-Palestinian members.
One Jewish lawyer and union member, in an email sent to Better NYLAG leadership and included in the complaint said they were “no longer able to ignore the blatant antisemitim of this bargaining unit.”
“You are intentionally seeking to harm members of the unit for your own personal political purposes which have absolutely nothing to do with the working conditions [of members],” the attorney said.
The union leadership’s action is beyond the pale, the complaint said.
“Rather than defend the right of these Jewish NYLAG employees in the ABN’s [A Better NY LAG] bargaining unit to be free from a toxic work environment – created in large part by the ABN’s own activities – the ABN went so far as to advocate against the very Jewish employees whom they purport to represent,” said Rory Lancman, senior council for the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law/ Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.
“The ABN is choosing to support discrimination against Jewish NYLAG employees in the
bargaining unit to whom it owes a duty of fair representation and who are enduring an anti-Semitic environment that NYLAG’s policy is attempting to remediate,” added Lancman, a former New York City Councilman.
The complaint calls on federal officials to rule that the union violated its duty of fair representation to Jewish members and to prevent the union from interfering with the employer’s efforts to comply with its legal obligation to prohibit discriminatory acts in the workplace.
The labor group had no immediate comment.
It’s not the first controversy involving the UAW’s Association of Legal Aid Attorneys.
The Brandeis Center took legal action against the union last July for allegedly retaliating against three members who objected to its alleged antisemitic practices.
Those employees worked for the Legal Aid Society.
