From: Herschel, Lucy
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 12:12 PM
To: 1199 Members; ALAA MEMBERS
Subject: Support our sisters and brothers at the Legal Services Staff Association at a morning picket tomorrow
LSSA is having a picket of one of their board members’ offices in Mid-town tomorrow a.m.. Anyone who can check it out, it’s a great way to kick off what should be a very exciting day of May Day protest!
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From: Gibb Surette [mailto:gsurette@lssa2320.org]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 4:49 PM
To: gibbsurette
Subject: Come out for LSSA 8a.m. May 1
Delegates, please forward.
Come out for a one-hour demonstration targetting LS-NYC vice-chair Michael Young. Gather at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 1, on the plaza in front of the New York Times building at 620 8th Avenue (between 40th & 41st Street, facing the Port Authority Bus Station). LSSA members, wear the red shirts!
The UAW, Occupy, and others are kicking off May Day by dispatching people that morning from Bryant Park to join pickets, and they have offered to bolster our numbers if we have a target in mid-town. We do, and the LSSA Executive Committee has voted unanimously to take advantage of this offer. This is a great opportunity to make a one-two punch out of the highly successful (and fun, according to all reports) demo we did in front of Joe Genova’s firm the other day. Delegates, please get, count, and report commitments from the folks in your shops.
Michael Young is a partner at JAMS (formerly Judicial Arbitration & Mediation Services), Inc., on the 34th Floor of the Times building. He is the vice-chair of the LS-NYC board. As such, he was involved in the secret meeting that voted to raid our bargaining unit, violate our contract, and lay off some of our most senior people out of order. He is also to be the first member that the board has ever sent to the bargaining table, as they seek another round of healthcare givebacks while the management staff ratio (now one non-bargaining unit employee for every 2.4 bargaining unit employees) continues to worsen. In addition, Young was the interim ED for LS-NYC under whom the infamous Quality and Impact memo (written by current ED Raun Rasmussen) instructed managers to identify staff for retirement or discipline. Young was an active participant in implementing this policy when he offered an attorney with 27 years experience and no formal discipline (who happened to be a union delegate) the choice of retirement or discipline. When the attorney declined retirement, Young signed off on targeting and then firing him. At his recent arbitration (decision pending), Young testified under oath that he knew nothing about the Q&I memo. Testimony was then taken that Young had been in meetings about the memo, and correspondence from Young about the memo was produced.
It is interesting to note that the website for JAMS mentions Seyfarth & Shaw LLP, which is located two floors down from JAMS in the same building. It is not clear exactly what the relationship between the two organizations is, but Seyfarth is the firm with which Marshall Babson is, or was, a partner. Babson was a Reagan appointee to the NLRB and is now a director on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s litigation and policy arm. He is the attorney that LS-NYC has said they are bringing to the bargaining table. At a recent meeting in the Bronx, Michael Young announced to union members present that they should not be put off by the aggressive anti-union reputation of Babson’s firm. (In fairness, it should be noted that more than one union side source has indicated that Babson actually is likely to be less problematic than some of the outside attorneys management has turned to in the past, in large part because he is smarter.)
P.S. Don’t forget to join us again at the end of the day in Union Square and help us highlight our issues in the big march down Broadway to Wall Street, as recently voted by the Delegate Assembly. Look for us at the Northwest corner of Union Square. If our contingent is elsewhere around the park, you will be redirected. We will step off at 5:30. For those who can take a couple of hours off work and wish to do so, there will be a rally and cultural event in Union Square starting at 4:00. Again, LSSA members should come with their union tees.
—
Gibb Surette
President, Legal Services Staff Ass’n
UAW 2320
256 West 38 St. #705
New York, NY 10018
tel 212-228-0992 x7, fax 212-228-0097
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