DOJ Civil Rights Lawyers Try to Unionize Amid Uncertain Future

Lawyers in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division have launched a union organizing campaign with an aggressive timeline to try securing bargaining status ahead of the next presidential administration.

The attempt to form what would be DOJ’s first known union of litigators—parallel to a more advanced effort inside the department’s environmental division—is focused on maintaining “stable” working conditions, such as telework flexibility, in the face of an uncertain future. Employee organizers are also trying to overcome a “widespread misunderstanding” among Civil Rights Division lawyers that they’re ineligible to unionize, according to materials disseminated to staff in late July and ...