Over 100 legal aid attorneys, social workers and advocates in Harlem and the Bronx went on strike Friday, with the possibility of more to come in the New York City area.

The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem union left their desks for the picket line, where they expect to be joined this afternoon by several local elected officials, as well as Democratic congressional candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez.

The strike has the potential to balloon in size after this weekend, with The Bronx Defenders union saying more than 300 members will walk off the job Monday if they don't reach a tentative collective bargaining agreement with their managers.

Both unions are among the five shops organized under the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys — a United Automobile Workers affiliate that represents more than 3,500 legal services workers in and around NYC — whose contracts expired at the end of last month. One of the others, the approximately 500-member Brooklyn Defender Services union, reached a deal to end their strike on Wednesday after six days on the picket line. The other two — the Center for Family Representation and Catholic Migration Services unions — have not authorized strikes at this time.

The Neighborhood Defender Service union, or NDSU, ratified its last contract in 2024, securing benefits that include healthcare coverage that comes at no cost to employees and updated salary scales. As members of the union and their managers returned to the bargaining table two years later, those same issues have returned as top points of contention.

"NDSU's key demands throughout the bargaining process have been to maintain the long-standing benefit offered NDS workers of no-premium, no-deductible health insurance, and living wages with cost-of-living adjustments that match the historic levels of inflation," the union said in a statement Friday. "NDS management's most recent proposals fail to guarantee continued no-cost healthcare over the term of the three-year contract. NDS management further has offered salary scales with only a 1% COLA over the three-year contract term, essentially offering wage cuts to its workers over time due to rising inflation."

NDS's management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

--Additional reporting by Emily Sawicki. Editing by Haylee Pearl.

For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.