Workers at six UAW Local 2325 public defender and social service offices — including The Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services — voted to go on strike after contract talks stalled, potentially setting up the first coordinated public defense walkout in New York City since 1994.

Workers at six UAW Local 2325 shops — including The Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services — voted this week to go on strike after failing to reach contract agreements with their employers, according to PIX11, setting up a potential coordinated walkout across New York City's public defender network for the first time in 32 years.

The Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA), UAW Local 2325, represents attorneys, social workers, paralegals, advocates, and administrative staff at more than 30 metro-area legal services nonprofits. The six shops in active dispute are The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Neighborhood Defender Service, the Center for Family Representation, Justice in Motion, and Catholic Migration Services — organizations that collectively cover criminal defense, family court representation, and immigration matters for low-income New Yorkers citywide.

On July 14, ALAA's Joint Council adopted a resolution that named the six shops as "currently bargaining and may call for strikes in July if they cannot reach agreements with their management." The council directed all ALAA members — including those at chapters not in contract dispute — to refuse struck work in any walkout: no extra arraignment shifts, no intake, no transferred cases. The union pledged its full institutional resources to back any member disciplined for refusing to cross a picket line.

The resolution stakes explicit historical ground. NYC's current fragmented indigent defense structure, ALAA argues, was "instituted by the Giuliani administration in retaliation for the 1994 ALAA-1199SEIU strike." After that walkout, Giuliani broke up what had been a more unified system under the Legal Aid Society into competing borough-based shops — deliberately, the union says, to fragment ALAA's bargaining power and reduce its ability to strike effectively. Every organization now in active dispute is a direct product of that restructuring.

A multi-shop walkout would force the city to scramble simultaneously for criminal-court coverage in the Bronx and Brooklyn, family-court coverage citywide, and immigration representation. No employer has publicly responded to the vote. Specific wage figures, vote totals, and a start date were not confirmed at press time.