Ballots go out on October 25, 2022
Return by November 15, 2022
VOTE the NOLSW United Slate!
Proposals
Financial Integrity
Unit treasurers should be able to monitor their Centrally Managed Account (CMA) dues balances through a secure web portal.
All NOLSW expenditures should be reviewed for the value added for members. A complete and detailed breakdown of how funds are used should be accessible through the website. Information that can be public, should be public, only sensitive information would be limited to the secure login for members.
UAW Resources for Members
NOLSW should encourage member engagement in the broader UAW community, including Citizenship and Legislative Action Committee/Community Action Program (CAP) and regional and national committees and conventions. The NEB should actively promote member access to these opportunities.
Existing education services for stewards, bargaining teams, treasurers, and first time members should be easily accessible and proactively offered. Introductory/orientation materials for new members should be developed and shared covering a basic history of unions and NOLSW.
External Organizing
NOLSW should be able to deploy organizers to facilitate first time union drives without taking away from active bargaining, work actions, and grievance handling. Our staff organizers know each of these roles require significant time and attention to be handled properly.
Union Business
All units should be empowered to include Union Business time in their CBAs. This will allow members to participate in union activities including CAP, serving as delegates to UAW conventions, attending regional and national conferences, attending the NOLSW National Joint Council, and engaging in legislative advocacy.
Contracts
NOLSW should develop and provide materials to assist units in building strong CBAs. Model language should be available for all topics covered in bargaining. Members should be able to access copies of past and current CBAs from all units.
Retired Workers Chapter
Our bylaws provide for a Retired Workers Chapter to maintain connection with the insight and knowledge of retired members. In recent years, this chapter appears to have been left idle, despite the high number of retired workers that would qualify for membership. We will ensure that all retired members are aware of their membership rights and the existence and benefits of the Retired Workers Chapter.
Ballots go out on October 25, 2022
Return by November 15, 2022
VOTE the NOLSW United Slate!
THE TEAM
Jordan Barbeau
Jordan Barbeau (she/her) is an attorney and organizer who practices family law at the St. Andrew Legal Clinic in Portland, Oregon. She currently serves as the Unit Chair of SALEU and is the head steward and bargaining committee lead. In addition to her union duties and caseload, Jordan is the Clinic’s IT Administrator and, as a member of the Labor Management Committee, has handled aspects of accounting, fundraising, outreach, and development. She represented NOLSW as a delegate to the most recent UAW Constitutional Convention in Detroit.
Jordan began her organizing career in 2009 with the Working Families Party in Brooklyn, on legislative and candidate campaigns with SEIU, CWA, AFT, and UAW. After law school, she returned to organizing as a Regional Field Director and State Coordinator for the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign. Jordan trained and oversaw staff across Las Vegas, Los Angeles County and Orange County and the state of Utah. She worked in conjunction with the ILWU, APWU, ATU and NUHW. Jordan transitioned to external organizing for National Nurses United where she fought for and won NLRB elections and filed ULPs on behalf of workers facing oppressive union busting.
Jordan first became a union member in 2011 while clerking for Hennepin County in Minneapolis, honoring the multigenerational rabble rousing tradition of her great grandfather, a Minnesota-based member and organizer with the painter’s union (IUPAT), and her father, a political organizer and attorney. When she moved to Oregon, she honed in on a unionized nonprofit that serves low-income families. Since 2018, she has worked proudly to represent her clients and win better contracts for her unit, while continuing to join work actions in support of other members and unionizing drives.
Matthew Vogel
Matthew Vogel (he/him) has been an attorney with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG) since 2019. At NIPNLG, Matt focuses on litigation and legal support concerning immigrant rights, immigration enforcement and detention, the immigration consequences of criminal legal system involvement, and due process in immigration proceedings. He is the NLG Staff Union’s steward and an active member of the bargaining committee, currently on track to win their first contract since the original was signed in 1990. As steward, he has successfully worked to prevent layoffs, obtained tens of thousands of dollars in backpay and severance pay for members, satisfactorily resolved several potential grievances, and shored up the unit’s recordkeeping and dues collections, in addition to everyday contract administration work. Prior to NIPNLG, Matt was a public defender in New Orleans, where he provided immigration consequences advising and training, was a member of the capital and juvenile life without parole defense teams, and defended felony and misdemeanor cases. Matt lives in New Orleans with his spouse, Tanya (a family nurse practitioner at a community clinic), their two kids, Luke and Xavier, and his mother-in-law, Bev.
Carolyn Gomez
Carolyn Gomez (they/them) is a Union Organizer and is part of the NOLSW 2320 SAG AFTRA Organizers United for Progress bargaining unit. They first joined NOLSW two years ago via the National Lawyers Guild unit, and have served as a unit co-president, bargaining team member, and shop steward. Prior to joining SAG AFTRA, Carolyn organized with the Fight for $15 and National Union of Healthcare Workers. Carolyn has experience negotiating collective bargaining agreements and coordinating strike actions when necessary. Carolyn has been organizing in their community alongside other tenants to fight unfair treatment, poverty, and racism. Carolyn brings 9 years of experience in organizing for power in the workplace and community.
Vail Kohnert-Yount
Vail Kohnert-Yount (she/her) is a labor and employment lawyer at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Brownsville, Texas. She first joined the UAW as a law student, when she organized with her fellow student workers to win the NLRB election to start Local 5118 at Harvard University. She moved back to her home state of Texas after law school, where she serves as a shop steward, chaired her unit’s elections committee, and represented NOLSW members as a delegate to the UAW Constitutional Convention in 2022. Vail also fought for “one member, one vote” to allow UAW members the power to vote directly for our leadership. The campaign prevailed through a nationwide referendum last year, in an unprecedented gain for the voice of the rank and file. She is proud to follow in the footsteps of her family members who are United Auto Workers in Local 598 in Flint, Michigan.
Natalie James
Natalie James (she/her) is a tenant attorney at Legal Services of New York City (LSNYC) of Colombian heritage. She serves on the executive committee as the political representative of her 650-member shop, Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA). Natalie previously worked for a nonprofit legal services organization that was not unionized, but in 2018 she changed her area of practice in order to join a union workplace. Natalie quickly became a strike captain and a delegate in LSSA’s Brooklyn Shop. She organized direct actions leading into LSSA’s bargaining cycle and through their contract vote in 2021. Natalie supported the successful passage of One Member, One Vote, and proudly represented LSSA and NOLSW as a delegate to the 2022 UAW Constitutional Convention. Natalie co-founded the Queer Liberation March, a people’s protest march without corporate funding or the presence of a police contingent, to serve as an alternative to the corporatized NYC Pride Parade. The Queer Liberation March mobilized 45,000 attendees in its first year.
Jacob Bolton
Jacob Z. Bolton (they/them or he/him) serves as a staff attorney at Lakeshore Legal Aid’s Counsel and Advocacy Law Line in Michigan. Before choosing a career in law, Jacob worked with several organizations and campaigns for economic and social justice. Jacob joined NOLSW as a Bargaining Team member in November 2020 soon after joining the Bargaining Unit at Lakeshore. In 2021, Jacob was elected as Unit Chair and continues to serve Lakeshore’s workers in this position. Jacob is proud to serve his colleagues through his work in the union and would be thrilled to serve NOLSW in a greater capacity. An empathic listener and kind leader, Jacob strives to ensure that everyone is invited to participate and mutually understood. In his free time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and playing tennis.
Brett Cattani
Brett Cattani (he/him) is a pro bono coordinator and staff attorney with Legal Aid Services of Oregon (LASO), Portland Regional Office. Brett has been a member of NOLSW since 2008 and previously served as a member of LASOWU’s bargaining committee. From 2016 to 2018, Brett was a tenant rights attorney in the Bronx office of Legal Services of New York City and an active member of the Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA).
PLATFORM
Our strength is in our collective voice, and the National Organization of Legal Services Workers is strongest when it is closest to the voice of its workers. NOLSW United candidates are rank and file members from across the country, from a wide range of organizations in human and legal services. We are all unified in our commitment to further advance the purposes and principles set forth in Articles II and III of our bylaws. If you have not read them recently, or perhaps have never seen a copy, they are linked here.
NOLSW United candidates have a broad vision for the future of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers. We recognize the need for small, practical measures — for example, a user-friendly website that provides up-to-date information and resources for members, the public, and workers considering forming a union. We are committed to making NOLSW finances transparent. Our members need more robust contracts, with guidance and direction to ensure that every unit has the best CBA possible. We must develop and strengthen ties between our units, amplifying the collective power we share. We will reach out to members, listen to them, and act on their concerns and priorities. Members need to see their leadership model strong union solidarity and support for worker actions — not to shrink from tough bargaining fights.
NOLSW members should all be able to rely on the union to provide guidance and training, to connect units with each other to mobilize support for work actions, and to vigorously pursue ULPs and grievances. We should have robust CBAs for all of our units, and provide the support and assistance that our units need to win and preserve them.
On a broader scale, NOLSW United will better utilize our union’s incredible position to advocate for significant legislative changes that would materially improve the lives of our clients, and in turn improve conditions for our members. Our members are in a desperate fight to connect people to scarce resources. We should not only be asking our employers to allocate more of their budgets to staffing, wages, and benefits, we should be in the state houses and Capitol demanding that more funding be allocated to human and legal services. We must push for policies that would resolve underlying obstacles for our clients, like universal childcare and safe and affordable housing. Have you ever had a client that couldn’t make an appointment, couldn’t make a hearing, because they had nobody to watch their kids? Have you ever had clients on indefinite waitlists for a finite quantity of HUD vouchers, or not been able to reach clients because they lost their apartment? How much time do you and your coworkers spend cycling through the handful of social services resources that can only help a fraction of your clients? If we renew our charter’s dedication to policy, including drafting bills and amicus briefs and testifying before legislative bodies, and engaging community groups on our shared priorities, we could dramatically change the landscape of our workplaces. We should not accept that burnout, high turnover, and low wages are inescapable due to a lack of policy support for our roles. There are, of course, numerous areas of policy that impact our members and clients. NOLSW United will rebuild the union’s legislative arm to provide national support to our units and empower members to advance local issues in their communities.
The NOLSW can and should do more. We are uniquely situated to advocate for our client populations and our members. There is renewed national support for unionizing efforts across sectors and geographies that have not historically been unionized. The National Organization of Legal Services Workers should be at the forefront of that collective shift in perspectives on how this country should serve the people, and how employers should respect and value their employees.
It can be easy to lose sight of the big picture when the day-to-day is all-consuming. Being part of a union teaches us that we can collectively create greater, longer-lasting change when we stand strong together and demand what is right and fair. The national leadership should be no different, the national board should be as strong and active as the members it serves. With dynamic goals and shared initiative, we will make meaningful improvements for our workers, our organizations, and our clients. On the other hand, if we remain static, we risk losing the gains we have already won. NOLSW United represents spirit and vision, building upon the groundwork that stretches back to the founding of our union in 1977. We bring a coalition that is ready to address the challenges that NOLSW faces, champion our values, and forge uncharted paths to accomplish what this union was formed to do.