The Brandeis Center filed federal antisemitism complaints Wednesday against a New York union, saying the labor organization discriminated against Jewish members by siding with other employees over their anti-Israel office displays.
The center submitted complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and National Labor Relations Board against A Better NYLAG, or ABN, the union that represents employees of the New York Legal Assistance Group.
In May 2024, the office banned the display of posters, fliers, buttons and other items expressing a viewpoint on the Israel-Gaza war after Jewish employees complained about the proliferation of anti-Israel messages, including “Resisting colonialism is not terrorism” and “Abolish the Settler State.”
The management said the policy was implemented “to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for everyone,” but the union filed an unfair labor-practices complaint against NYLAG, saying the ban violated its members’ free-speech rights.
The Brandeis Center argued that the “union cannot throw its members of one protected identity under the bus in favor of supporting other members’ ‘right’ to discriminate against or torment them.
“Yet that is exactly what the ABN is doing: choosing to discriminate against its many Jewish members and nonmembers in its bargaining unit who are experiencing a discriminatory toxic environment in fighting to allow that discriminatory toxic environment to continue unremedied,” said the NLRB complaint submitted by Rory Lancman, Brandeis senior counsel.
Failing to provide fair representation out of “discriminatory animus” also violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the center said.
Meanwhile, the union, an arm of the United Auto Workers’ Local 2325-Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, has accused management of “silencing workers’ speech” and seeking to “harass and intimidate workers for their pro-Palestine speech in our office.”
“Let us be clear — attempts to silence our speech around Palestinian liberation will only strengthen our resolve,” said the union in a June statement. “From New York to Palestine, our fierce commitment to truth and justice does not stop at the courtroom door.”
Certainly, the union has made no secret of its anti-Israel views. At a September protest outside the NYLAG office, union members and their supporters wore keffiyehs, waved Palestinian flags and shouted “Free Palestine!”
“A Better NYLAG-UAW 2325 members and supporters picketed today to speak out against management censorship of anti-genocidal, pro-Palestine speech at the workplace,” said the Sept. 17 post on A Better NYLAG’s Instagram account.
In December 2023, the union approved a resolution on a 1,670-570 vote calling for a ceasefire to the Israel-Gaza war, ending military aid to Israel, expressing solidarity with the “Palestinian liberation struggle” and ripping Israel for its “colonial apartheid occupation.”
Despite the anti-poster policy, a Jewish employee told management in a March 21 email that some co-workers were still displaying material intended to “demonize Jews and/or Zionists and Israel.”
“As a Jewish person, I should not have to work in such close proximity to signs that direct hatred towards me,” said the email contained in the NLRB complaint.
Kenneth Marcus, Brandeis Center chairman and former U.S. assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said Jewish union members, like all others, “are entitled to union representation that supports them fairly and equally against toxic environments.”
“In this case, the union actually made things worse, actively attempting to block management efforts to address a workplace that had been made inhospitable for Jewish workers,” Mr. Marcus said in a statement. “This is exactly the opposite of what unions should be doing. We must hold labor unions accountable when they exacerbate anti-Semitic environments, just as we do with universities, public schools and other institutions.”
Like many left-wing institutions, labor unions have pilloried Israel and embraced Gaza in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, but public attention on their activity has largely taken a backseat to anti-Israel protests on college campuses.
The House Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee drew attention to the issue at a July 9 hearing on “ways in which unions contribute to the viral spread of antisemitism and how the law can better protect Jewish employees.”
