For press inquiries, please reach out to stopBLSantiworker@gmail.com.

For decades, Brooklyn Law School has contracted with responsible unionized night cleaning companies at its main building at 250 Joralemon Street in Downtown Brooklyn. This legacy is now in jeopardy.

We the students have recently learned that Brooklyn Law School is planning to cancel its contract with Triangle – a responsible cleaning company that respects workers’ rights to organize and provides family-sustaining wages and benefits – this Thursday, June 30, 2022. The Law School will replace this contractor with low-road, anti-worker contractor Advantage Cleaners starting July 1. We are deeply unsatisfied with the response from Dean Cahill to the numerous students who expressed their outrage with this decision and as such cannot in good conscience proceed with our studies without speaking out for those who support us at the school. However, there is still time for Brooklyn Law School to reverse this decision.

Advantage Cleaners is under investigation by the NLRB. Under Advantage Cleaners, the workers, members of 32BJ SEIU, would face a slew of negative changes. They would lose their employer-paid comprehensive healthcare coverage and their retirement plan, and they would see their wages fall from between $24-30 an hour to $17 an hour, an almost 50% cut in pay. In a time when rents are increasing, inflation is rampant, unemployment is rising, and we are still dealing with the effects of COVID-19, it is imperative that employees have secure and stable benefits.

The overnight cleaning staff at Brooklyn Law School rely on their current wages and benefits to survive in NYC. Other New York law schools, such as NYU and St. John’s, contract with responsible cleaning contractors that compensate workers at the family-sustaining industry standard. With this change, Brooklyn Law School would be going against its own history as well as setting negative examples.

Brooklyn Law School prides itself on being a school dedicated to public service. Its own website says, “The fundamental mission of Brooklyn Law School is to provide its students with a comprehensive legal education that gives them the knowledge, skills, and ethical values needed for a career in the law.” But there is no true way to impart ethical values to students when the law school is not acting in line with its own mission statement.

Brooklyn Law School should not be stripping vital benefits from workers who do the behind-the-scenes work to keep its main building open and safe for faculty and students. We demand that the school reverse this anti-worker decision and commit to continuing to contract with a responsible contractor that will ensure that the overnight cleaning staff retain their current wages and benefits.