Exclusive | Lawyers union slammed for toxic environment for Jewish members in bombshell lawsuit

Union activists tormented Jewish colleagues with a “toxic working environment” that spewed pro-terror, anti-Israel vitriol despite a stated policy of neutrality about the Gaza War, a bombshell new federal lawsuit claims.NY Legal Assistance Group attorneys and workers in the A Better NYLAG union were accused of posting signs in offices and cubicles and sporting buttons with slogans like “Intifida Now” “Resisting Colonialism is not Terrorism,” according to the complaint filed Tuesday by the Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.The group argued the phrases rationalize killing Israeli Jews and discriminate against Jewish staffers, a 20-page complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Opportunity Commission said.“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 ...