Mission

We are Brennan Center United: a union of non-supervisory employees at the Brennan Center for Justice, representing workers from legal and non-legal departments and nearly every occupation. We are committed to the organization’s vision for American democracy and justice and believe that workplace democracy is instrumental in realizing this vision, both within our organization and throughout our society.

From protecting the right to vote to ending mass incarceration, the Brennan Center strives to ensure that everyone has a voice in our democracy. We take pride in our work, and our union aligns with the Brennan Center’s values, objectives, and belief in a free, just, and democratic society. Senator Robert Wagner, sponsor of the National Labor Relations Act, was adamant that collective bargaining is at the core of preserving both “political as well as economic democracy in America.” Not only does our union reflect the self-determination of the Brennan Center staff, but also it contributes to a greater project of democratic representation in the United States.

We have affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW), whose mid-20th century leader, Walter Reuther, led the union in its support of the civil rights movement, backing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Reuther also participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who named the labor movement “the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.” 

Proclaiming his administration’s policy to promote unionization, President Biden recently remarked, “Every American deserves the dignity and respect that comes with the right to union organize and collectively bargain.” Several of our partner and peer organizations, such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Urban Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Open Society Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Century Foundation, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, have exercised this right. We, Brennan Center United, stand proudly with them and millions of working Americans in pursuit of economic and social justice, racial and gender equity, disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, safe and healthy working conditions, and workplace democracy.