Law360 Brass Makes ‘Impossible’ Concessions To Union

Striking Law360 Union workers after a press conference/rally outside LexisNexis' Manhattan headquarters on Monday.

The Law360 Union has achieved significant gains, once deemed “impossible” by management, at the bargaining table as the unit’s unfair labor practice strike entered its fifth consecutive weekday, union leaders said Monday.

The gains were announced at a press conference that assembled more than 70 striking Law360 workers for an all-day picket line at the Manhattan headquarters of Law360’s parent company LexisNexis.

“My bargaining committee colleagues and I just came from the table where management finally gave us their latest response after days of stalling. I can tell you this though — it is clear that the strike is working,” said Hailey Konnath, a reporter and unit chair of the Law360 Union. “When we all stand together like this, when we all walk away from our desks, the company has no choice but to listen to us.”

Konnath continued, “Today, management came to the table and they made moves that they previously said were absolutely impossible. And you know what, that’s a recurring theme since we walked out.”

Among the purportedly “impossible” advances Konnath said the union had achieved at bargaining: extending members’ parental leave, increasing salary minimums for entry-level employees and preserving job security protections that were established in the union’s first collective bargaining agreement with management, which expired at the end of 2022.

The striking workers on the picket line, clad almost uniformly in union red, were, in turn, joined virtually by several dozen more remote employees participating in the strike from across the country.

“Law360 has never made it easy for this union,” said Juan-Carlos Rodriguez, a senior reporter and veteran Law360 organizer who served on the bargaining committee for the unit’s first hard-won contract.

“They fought us on the NLRB [vote to unionize], they dragged out bargaining for our first contract for almost two years, but what was the result? We won! We won a record-setting, standard-setting contract for the NewsGuild and inspired many other shops to unionize themselves and win fair contracts,” Rodriguez said. 

He added, “It’s going to be the same result this time. They know it, we know it. They can’t fight our solidarity. They never have been able to, and they’re not going to be able to this time either.”

The company did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.

The Law360 Union is the fifth largest bargaining unit represented by The NewsGuild of New York, whose president Susan DeCarava extolled the union’s solidarity and commitment to securing a fair second contract.

“We haven’t even been out a week, and look what you’ve done! You not only held the line and made sure that when your bargaining committee is sitting at the table across from management, management knows that what they speak is the truth,” DeCarava said. “When they say, we’re not ratifying nonsense, then management knows they gotta come back with more.”

The Law360 Union’s unfair labor practice, or ULP, strike began on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 10, some three weeks after 94% of the unit signed a pledge to strike if a fair contract could not be reached.

Mario Cilento, the New York State AFL-CIO president, made a second appearance at the union’s picket line Monday. He addressed the striking workers, saying, “If there’s anything that’s going to get your management people concerned, really concerned, is the fact that this crowd is bigger and stronger than it was last week! That’s what this is about.”

Cilento continued, “It’s about standing strong and standing united, and that is the core of who we are. And that is what they completely do not understand, that when we stand together and join together and fight together and raise our voices together, we win!”

—Transcribing by Philip Shea. Editing by Katie McNally and Michael Watanabe.