Published by Reuters on 11/13/2025 A union representing New York-based legal aid lawyers said Thursday it will pay $315,000 to settle claims that it tried to retaliate against three of its members after they challenged the union’s issuance of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and “an end to Israeli apartheid.” As part of the settlement, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325, will issue a statement acknowledging that “some of the communications” around the discussion of the resolution in November and December 2023 “were hurtful to union members and inappropriate.” The union also agreed that it will provide training to its executive board members on the rights of labor union members, and the union agreed to refer any disciplinary charges it files against its members to its outside counsel for review until 2028, according to settlement papers, opens new tab filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court. “This settlement is a landmark in the fight against anti-Semitism in this sector,” Kenneth Marcus, the chairman of the nonprofit Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. Attorneys for the ALAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ALAA is an affiliate of the United Auto Workers union and represents lawyers who work for New York-area groups that represent indigent defendants including the Legal Aid Society. The ALAA on its website says its membership includes more than 3,000 lawyers and advocates. At the time the lawsuit was filed in July 2024, the plaintiffs were lawyers who worked at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County. Plaintiffs Ilana Kopmar, Diane Clarke and Isaac Altman called the resolution “blatantly anti-Semitic” and sought a court order stopping the union from disciplining or expelling them for mounting an earlier, unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to block it. The union denied wrongdoing, and had argued, opens new tab that the plaintiffs “tried and failed to interfere with union democracy and chill union members’ protected speech.”