Congress To Probe Legal Union Over Anti-Israel Resolution Opposed by Nearly a Third of Its Members

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx is scrutinizing the union representing Legal Aid lawyers after it passed an anti-Israel resolution that misrepresented the majority views of its members, according to a request for information document obtained exclusively by the Sun.Nearly 35 percent of 1,637 voters in the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys opposed its resolution, adopted in December, that demanded “a Cease-fire in Gaza, an End to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and Support for Workers’ Political Speech.” The union is facing a lawsuit from four of its own members and could lose funding for engaging in what critics say is a breach of fair representation and a conflict of interest for public defenders.Now, Ms. Foxx is investigating the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, or Local 2325, which represents more than 3,000 public defenders and legal employees at New York City, as part of a series of probes into antisemitism. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which she chairs, came under the national spotlight when it scrutinized three elite university presidents over the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment surging on their campuses at a congressional hearing in December. “This Resolution has forced Jewish members of Local 2325 to take a critical position on their faith, Israel, and Israel’s sovereignty,” Ms. Foxx said in her letter to the president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Lisa Ohta, which was shared with the Sun. “Several attorneys represented by Local 2325 are now forced to be associated with a union that has taken a stance they believe creates a conflict of interest and an ethical dilemma in their practice of law.”The resolution describes the October 7 attack on Israel as a “violent tragedy” and fails to mention Hamas’s involvement. Four members subsequently sued Local 2325 on the basis of “irreconcilable conflicts of interest that would deprive them of the ability to do their jobs properly as public defenders,” Ms. Foxx says in the letter. They obtained a temporary restraining order in November to block the vote from occurring, but that order dissolved last month so the group proceeded with the vote. Litigation is ongoing.The resolution also appears to be in violation of the policy of Local 2325’s employer, the non-profit legal aid provider based at New York City, Legal Aid Society. The organization’s mission statement says it steers clear of international politics, promising to pursue “one simple but powerful belief: that no New Yorker should be denied the right to equal justice.” The resolution could be jeopardizing funding for the Legal Aid Society. Four law firms threatened to pull funding from the organization, its chief executive officer, Twyla Carter, said in a leaked tape of a staff meeting obtained by the Intercept in November. She discouraged union members from voting on the statement, allegedly saying, “I’m not trying to lose a dime.” Others in the legal profession have come out in sharp opposition to Local 2325’s statement. A newly formed group of 45 private attorneys, The Bronx Independent Lawyers for Justice, said it was “outraged” by the union’s “bigoted and antithetical position on revisionist history” and called the union declaration “Hamas propaganda.” Ms. Foxx is asking Local 2325 to provide documentation relating to the vote so the House committee can determine whether it is carrying out its duty of fairly representing union members. “When union bosses act in a way that is purposefully divisive and combative toward their membership, they challenge the validity of their monopoly,” she says. “Unions are granted an effective monopoly under federal law, enabling them to act as the exclusive bargaining representative for the employees they represent.”

Congress To Probe Legal Union Over Anti-Israel Resolution Opposed by Nearly a Third of Its Members

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