About
Who is A better nylag?
A Better NYLAG is a growing group of NYLAG employees who believe that our organization, clients, and mission would benefit from electing to unionize. Unions empower their employees by leveling the playing field with management. Even in the healthiest, most cooperative work environments, unions provide their members with training, salary, and employment protections and guarantees that help them to grow as employees and provide the best services possible for their clients.
Although some NYLAG employees enjoy attentive supervisors, comprehensive training, and a supportive work environment, others experience overwhelming caseloads, insufficient supervision, and job insecurity. Unfortunately, some of our colleagues have even dealt with instances of abuse and hostility, which, when reported, were either ignored or downplayed by management. We believe that a union would not only provide a means of addressing some of NYLAG's shortcomings, but would also serve to increase the quality of work and workplace respect for all.
We cannot make this happen without you. We need your votes. We need your ideas. We need to be recognized by management. And we need to negotiate a contract. But our goal is simple: build a better place to come to work every day. A place that values its employees—and shows them how much. A Better NYLAG.
Who can join?
Right now, our union will represent all paralegals, coordinating paralegals, senior paralegals, staff attorneys, coordinating staff attorneys, senior staff attorneys, fellows, and administrative staff. This may expand, but supervisors, directors, and other managers cannot be members.
The Process
To form a union, we must:
Sign cards. Our first step is to get a sizable majority—at least 80%—of our prospective union members to sign cards pledging support for the union.
Go public. On June 6th, a delegation composed of representitives from each NYLAG Unit announced our union to management. We gave NYLAG management a June 10th deadline by which to voluntarily recognize the union through a card-check by a neutral third party. Read our announcement to management here.
Card-check. Ideally, management will agree to proceed via card check. A date will be scheduled for the third party to count the cards to confirm that we have signed up a majority (50% + 1) of eligible members. When the third party confirms our count, management must recognize and bargain with the union.
Win an election. If management is unwilling to agree to a card-check, the signed cards will be used to petition the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) to hold a secret-ballot election. It will take the NLRB 30 days to determine who is eligible to vote and schedule the election.
Be recognized. NYLAG management MUST recognize and bargain with our union after we have won an election.
Negotiate a contract. After our union is recognized, negotiations begin. This is when the union will develop a contract to ensure that NYLAG employees get the rights and benefits they richly deserve.
