Guardians of Gideon Disarmed and Union Busting in the 90’s

By Michael Z. Letwin, Esq.,

January 2001 and part II April 2001

The Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright spawned not only public defenders’ offices throughout the nation but the first union of attorneys. The President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Local 2325, UAW, presents the over 30-year-history of the struggle of defense attorneys employed by New York City’s Legal Aid Society to organize themselves; describing their goals, their tactics and the opposition they have encountered in their quest to improve both their wages and conditions of work and the fate of their clients. The union struck in 1994. Broken by New York City Mayor Rudoph Giuliani through a combination of union-busting tactics such as threatening blacklisting of the strikers, hiring strike breakers, layoffs and cutting funds, the strike and its aftermath was a blow to the overburdened and underfunded attorneys and the constitutional rights of their clients.