Covenant House Facing Contempt Charges for Refusing to Bargain
Covenant House is the largest nonprofit in New York City providing shelter and services for homeless youth.
By Steve Wishnia
The National Labor Relations Board is planning to ask federal courts to hold Covenant House in contempt for refusing to bargain in good faith with 1199SEIU after a judge issued an injunction ordering it to do so in September 2025.
The NLRB announced that in a motion filed Aug. 14 with the federal 2nd Circuit appeals court, asking it to delay considering Covenant House’s appeal of that injunction. It said it “anticipates filing a petition for compensatory contempt damages” because of the nonprofit’s “contumacious violations” of the lower-court order.
Covenant House is the city’s largest nonprofit provider of shelter and services for homeless youth. About 190 workers at its facilities in Manhattan and the Bronx voted to join 1199SEIU in July 2022, but have not been able to negotiate a first contract. The last bargaining session before the injunction was issued had been in February 2024.
Since it was issued, management has showed up for scheduled bargaining sessions, says Leigh Howard, 1199’s vice president for community-based organizations and pharmacies. But “they’ve not presented a single completed proposal,” she told Work-Bites, haven’t responded to requests for information, and laid off or fired bargaining-committee members. She describes their tactics as “delay and distract.”
NLRB Administrative Law Judge Lauren Esposito concluded in September 2025 that Covenant House had repeatedly cancelled scheduled bargaining sessions at the last minute, failed to present proposals or give the union information it needed, and refused to resume talks until two union members it claimed held management positions were kicked off the bargaining committee. The judge also said the organization had threatened to fire those two employees if they participated in union activity.
The full board affirmed Esposito’s decision by a 3-0 vote on Aug. 5. Two of the three were appointed by Donald Trump, including Scott Mayer, who previously worked for the union-busting law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
Covenant House has continued to insist that the two employees, the director of development and communications and a program compliance coordinator, were part of management. In an April letter to the City Council, its CEO, Dr. Shakeema North-Albert, accused 1199SEIU of enlisting “supervisory, managerial, and confidential personnel” in its union activities.
Both of their job titles were included in a list of positions in the bargaining unit that Covenant House originally agreed to, says Howard. The bargaining committee agreed that they would both step back, she added, and “neither of these two work there anymore.”
The NLRB concluded that neither one qualified as management, because they did not have the power to fire subordinates, determine budgets, or set policy.
The April letter was a response to a missive signed by 19 Councilmembers, led by Bronx Democrats Althea Stevens and Shirley Aldebol, expressing “serious concern” about Covenant House’s labor practices, and noting that the city has supported its work “through substantial public funding.”
“Organizations entrusted with public funds and with the care of vulnerable young people must demonstrate full compliance with applicable law, including federal labor law,” the Councilmembers’ letter stated. They added that they were aware that Covenant House viewed certain union proposals “as incompatible with its obligations to ensure youth safety,” but responded that “disfavored contract proposals are resolved through good faith bargaining, not by refusing to bargain. Covenant House's responsibilities under child protection standards and federal labor law must be met concurrently.”
In Covenant House’s response, North-Albert argued that its “entrepreneurial core management” model involved operational decisions that it had “no duty to bargain” about. Particularly, she wrote, allowing employees facing allegations “involving potential harm to a youth” to cross-examine “traumatized and victimized youth” effectively means that “1199SEIU is seeking to make Covenant House New York unsafe.”
“They don’t want to have any just-cause” requirement for dismissal, Howard told Work-Bites, adding that management was “utterly unwilling” to bargain on some issues.
The union has contracts with other youth-service organizations, such as the Door and the Hetrick-Martin Institute, that are overseen by the state Justice Center, which investigates allegations of abuse in programs and facilities that serve “vulnerable populations.”
“We are not ‘other’ organizations,” North-Albert wrote in April.
The NLRB rarely seeks injunctions against employers, and the number has declined under the Trump administration. It filed for 17 injunctions in 2023, 10 in 2024, seven in 2025, and only three so far this year, according to board records online. In 2024, it issued 635 “complaints”—the equivalent of indictments—out of the 21,300 unfair-labor-practice accusations it received, about 3%. In 2025, those numbers were 704 out of 19,754, 3.6%. Over the past decade, one-fourth to one-third of cases have been resolved by settlements.
Covenant House’s recalcitrance is highly unusual for a nonprofit social-services organization, an 1199SEIU spokesperson said.
“All we’ve been asking for is for them to come to bargaining prepared to get a collective-bargaining agreement,” said Howard. “The members deserve to be bargained with.”