Legal Aid Society staff lawyers who represent indigent defendants in New York City walked off the job at midnight last night in a dispute over a new contract.
In a candlelight demonstration outside the Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan at the hour when their two-year union agreement expired, the lawyers expressed displeasure with the society's position after months of negotiations.
The society said supervisory personnel would fill in at arraignment courts in the city during the weekend and on Monday if the walkout continued. But Pat Bath, a spokeswoman for the society, said supervisors could not handle the caseload beyond Monday. Legal Aid is paid $79 million a year by the city to defend people who cannot afford private lawyers.
The union is to meet at 9 A.M. Monday at the Loeb Student Center on the New York University campus in Greenwich Village to decide if the strike should continue.
The society employs 919 staff lawyers, according to Michael Letwin, the president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys. The union bargained through the day yesterday with negotiators for the society at its offices at 15 Park Row, but talks broke off at 5 P.M.
The principal issues are wages, health benefits and the workload, Mr. Letwin said. In a memorandum to the lawyers, the society said financial difficulties made the city "unwilling to make any money available for increases in compensation and benefits for the new contract."
Mr. Letwin said salaries for staff lawyers begin at about $31,000, rise to $64,000 after 13 years and average about $45,000. The Legal Aid Society was offering no wage increases. It offered bonuses of 2 percent in each of the two years of the new contract but said some of the bonuses would have to be applied to health insurance premiums.
The union said it wanted a wage increase of 4.5 percent over the life of the agreement, matching the increase recently given to the society's supervisors. Mr. Letwin said the union was also seeking support staff to reduce a workload he called "overwhelming."
"If you cannot attract and retain experienced attorneys to represent indigent clients," Mr. Letwin said, "then the experienced lawyers will be working only for those who can pay -- and that's not the kind of equal justice we believe in."
