“An Injury to One is an Injury to All”: ALAA-UAW 2325 Joint Council Resolution in Support of Targeted ALAA Workers
Adopted by the Joint Council October 21, 2025
For nearly two years, Managements across ALAA shops have engaged in a pattern of escalating intimidation, discipline, and termination against ALAA union members who organize, mobilize, or speak out in principled opposition to the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Palestine. On November 15, 2023, the Legal Aid Society condemned ALAA’s 2023 resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to Israeli occupation, and support for workers’ political speech, even before it was voted on, attempting to exert Management influence over union democracy and protected political speech. That same day, The Bronx Defenders (BxD) issued a statement condemning BxD Union’s Palestine solidarity resolution. Two days later, the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) condemned ALAA’s proposed resolution.
Since then NYLAG Management has subjected members to escalating surveillance and discipline for expressing solidarity with Palestine, including: banning materials referencing Palestine in the workplace, removing those materials in violation of federal labor law, and subjecting numerous workers to counseling, training, verbal warnings, and written warnings. Most recently, in September 2025 NYLAG suspended eight workers without pay, including A Better NYLAG’s Chapter Chair, Non-Attorney Executive Representative, VP of Communications, Disability Caucus Representative, two members of the Bargaining Committee, and ALAA’s Recording Secretary. More suspensions and terminations appear imminent.
For the first time in its 28-year organizational history, The Bronx Defenders issued an “unpaid suspension pending investigation” against long-time BxD immigration attorney and then-ALAA union leader, Sophia Gurulé. Just as BxD Union’s “right to strike” imminently approached, and despite no prior discipline in her eight years at BxD, Management ultimately terminated Sophia by email, claiming her “self-aggrandizing orientation [] impedes growth”. To many ALAA workers, BxD’s targeting of Sophia is a blatant, reactionary attempt to intimidate workers as they organize for better contracts, better working conditions, and advocate against the fascist repression of Palestinians and the Palestinian liberation movement. It is well documented that as an elected union leader Sophia privately and publicly defended ALAA workers under attack: at the bargaining table, in grievance meetings, on picket lines, at rallies, at town halls, in the press, before Albany legislators, before the New York City Council, and on the BxD Union and ALAA Executive Boards. Since Sophia’s termination, BxD continues to escalate disciplinary action and enhanced surveillance of BxD workers, most notably those who are Black, Latine, and Bronx-raised.
In an environment of ever-heightening repression both within and outside of the workplace, Brooklyn Defender Service (BDS) workers have also been subjected to heightened workplace surveillance and rightwing doxxing campaigns—including one fueled by BDS’ disgraced Executive Director, Lisa Schreibersdorf. In her most recent union-busting effort advocating for BDS Union to disaffiliate with ALAA, Schreibersdorf invoked ALAA’s Palestine advocacy to disparage union members and staff workers: first by misrepresenting that Sophia was fired for “malpractice” because she was “spending too much time worrying about Palestine and the union,” and then by referring to anti-Zionist Jewish BDS workers, ALAA union members, and ALAA staff as “self-hating Jews.” Such defamatory and discriminatory comments clearly demonstrate ALAA employers’ shared disdain for Palestinians – and anyone who supports them – as well as the desperate lengths ALAA employers will go to silence and intimidate workers into silent submission.
In light of these facts, it is clear that New York City’s leading “social justice” non-profit bosses are misappropriating their organizational purpose and resources to undermine ALAA union power and to curtail workers’ First Amendment rights.
ALAA’s Joint Council therefore:
- Condemns Managements at ALAA shops who silence protected speech by targeting workers with doxxing, discipline, and termination;
- Supports all workers targeted for their political speech, union activities, and Palestine solidarity, including A Better NYLAG members who will be picketing on Thursday, October 23 at 1PM at 100 Pearl Street to support unjustly disciplined workers;
- Supports BxD workers facing discipline and arbitration, including by demanding Sophia Gurulé’s immediate reinstatement, full backpay, and any efforts to make her November 10, 2025 arbitration hearing public for ALAA members to attend and observe;
- Joins the ALAA Executive Board in demanding Lisa Schreibersdorf’s immediate resignation for her anti-labor policies, including her implementation of UKG tracking technology, her unlawful effort to union-bust by attempted bribery of a BDS worker, and her defamatory and discriminatory remarks about ALAA-UAW union members and staff; and
- Calls on the ALAA Executive Board, ALAA members, and all supporters of organized labor to support ALAA workers as they prepare for disciplinary hearings and arbitrations, including by organizing and attending pickets, publicizing petitions in support, and attending open arbitration hearings.
