About two dozen people met Tuesday in downtown Moline to protest actions of Prairie State Legal Services (PSLS), which has proposed to cut 17 employees this Friday, Nov. 13.
Union members, including unionized staff of PSLS’s office at 1515 5th Ave., Moline, carried signs, chanted, and encouraged motorists to honk at the intersection of 15th Street and 5th Avenue.
Since 1977, PSLS has pursued equal access to justice for people living in poverty across 36 counties in Northern and Central Illinois. It operates 11 offices – in addition to Moline, locations are in Bloomington, Galesburg, Joliet, Kankakee, McHenry, Ottawa, Peoria, Rockford, Waukegan, and West Suburban (West Chicago).
“The workers organized looking for stable working conditions and living wages for their lower-paid workers in 2024,” Jacob Bolton -- financial secretary treasurer of Local 2320, National Organization of Legal Services Workers, who’s an attorney for Lakeshore Legal Aid in Michigan -- told the group protesting Tuesday, Nov. 10.
“We've been bargaining contracts since February 2025 and still no contract. Management hired Littler Mendelson, one of the biggest, $750-million union-busting law firms in the United States,” he said. “They're global. They bust Amazon, and now they're busting our workers as well.”
“They're not proposing any cuts to management who don't provide the services to the community. And we think this is not okay,” Bolton said. “That's not what the organization's for, and we're not standing for it. Management also has been not transparent throughout the process, and it seems to be straight-up union busting.”
“We're trying to get them to lower the number of paralegals laid off as well, many of whom were hired this year,” he said to the group. “The funding that they claimed that was lost this year is restored for next year. They have enough reserves to make it through, so we're not standing for it. One action you guys can do in support, follow us on social media, Instagram and Facebook, search for Prairie State Legal United.”
In November 2024, non-management staff at PSLS voted to unionize. In February 2025, Prairie State Legal United (PSLU) and PSLS management began the collective bargaining process. The union has been asking for better wages, benefits and working conditions since bargaining began 18 months ago.
After nearly two years, a contract has still not been reached.
PSLS is a nonprofit organization that provides free civil legal assistance across 36 northern Illinois counties to low-income individuals, people with a disability, veterans, domestic abuse survivors, and seniors. Services include advice, negotiation, investigation, representation, as well as education and outreach. PSLS is the 2nd largest legal aid provider in Illinois.
The attorneys, paralegals, resource development staff, and office support staff who make that work possible deserve a first contract with compensation that allows them to build sustainable careers, Bolton said.
There are seven union members in the Moline office, and 130 bargaining members throughout Illinois, and a proposal to cut about 10% of the union staff, partly due to what PSLS calls a budget deficit. They have not specified exactly who (of 17 projected staff statewide) will be let go on Friday.
On Oct. 19th, PSLS shared a notice with the union to lay off 16 client services staff and zero administrative staff effective Nov. 13th. The proposal was later increased to 17.
Management claims the organization has a budget deficit (which the union challenges) and characterizes these layoffs as an expense reduction proposal. Prairie State has refused to share with the bargaining unit which offices/projects are to be eliminated.
PSLS also intends to leave the majority of the approximately 16 vacant client services positions unfilled. This would decimate the number of attorneys, paralegals, community resource specialists, and office administrators assisting clients and capacity for Prairie State to provide services.
Meanwhile, from 2019 to 2025, PSLS has seen a 110% increase in non-client facing, central administrative positions, while attorney staffing only increased 25%.
In 2025, the Congressionally authorized Legal Services Corporation recommended that PSLS “reassess the ratio of extended-representation-case-handling attorneys to other staff to ensure sufficient capacity for direct client services.”
In response to questions from WVIK Tuesday, PSLS provided the following statement:
“PSLS is a nonprofit law firm and we do not charge our clients for legal services. We pay our expenses through grants and donations. At PSLS, we are committed to high-quality legal services to every client, every time. We are proud of and committed to our staff who do this challenging work day in, and day out.
“We hold these commitments as we negotiate our first collective bargaining agreement. We will continue to bargain in good faith to reach an agreement and, as always, we will continue to provide high-quality legal services to our clients,” the statement said.
State rep supports staff
Illinois State Rep. Gregg Johnson (D-East Moline), a 44-year union member, came out Tuesday to support the workers.
“The reality is a lot of these workers are working probably below market value simply because they enjoy what they're doing. So Prairie State needs to do right by them, at a time when we need these people more than ever,” he said.
“Attorney fees are very, very high, and everybody should have the right to representation,” Johnson said of the need for free legal services. “Having someone like Prairie State, having an organization like this with their attorneys available, it levels the playing field for them.”
“Imagine a system at the courthouse without public defenders,” he noted. “We have a great public defender system down here. We really do. Sometimes they're every bit as— from what I hear, they're every bit as good as our paid attorneys on that side. We have an adversarial system set up and everybody has the right to have fair representation. And I feel like they're trying to take that away from people and those opportunities.”
“Not every workplace has to be organized, but those that want to organize, there's a reason why, so they should then be organized,” Johnson said. “Or management needs to figure out a way to make them whole.”
“Apparently, Prairie State didn’t see what happened last Tuesday,” he told the group about the Democratic tsunami that dominated Nov. 3 elections nationwide. “Everybody spoke up and said, ‘We support organized labor. We support the middle class.’”
“Workers don’t end up taking these actions, unless they’re at that final point,” Johnson said. “Workers don’t wanna strike, don’t wanna picket. Nobody wants their life uprooted like that. We’re gonna fight for you guys. We’re gonna join the picket lines. The important service that’s provided through Prairie State – we got people that rely on Prairie State.”
Dan Gosa, president of the Quad City Federation of Labor, also spoke briefly Tuesday, noting he was elected last week to the Iowa House of Representatives (District 81). “When we fight, we win, right? Thank you all for being here today,” he said.
Worries for jobs
PSLS paralegals Nancy Navarro and Christopher Boley (the only two in the Moline office) joined the protest, as did staff attorney Nick Coulter (one of six Moline attorneys).
“Our services are really important because we offer free legal help. Not everybody can afford it,” Navarro said. “And not a lot of people know about Prairie State, so we're always— we have a community resource specialist, and she goes out and promotes our work.”
Navarro is worried for her job.
“We are not knowing. We were told in a short notice, especially right before the holiday,” she said. “I guess we'll be knowing on Friday the 13th.”
“I have a passion helping people,” Navarro said. “Around the holidays, it's one of the highest, times where people are getting evicted from their homes. It could be something very small that an attorney can step in and, you know, help. We also do like emergency services for people that have a lockout or water shut off. It's really good to be able to help.”
“Sometimes it can just be something very small people don't know when it comes to the law,” she added. “And our attorneys do a wonderful job to be able to assist.”
“We've seen increased traffic for sure,” Coulter said, crediting the paralegals. “And I would just add that the attorneys can't do our work as efficiently without these guys. They are a crucial support role. We can serve far fewer clients if they aren't there to support us. So we work as a team with everything that we do. So losing one of them would really hurt us.”
Four of the six Moline attorneys are in the union, and the office represents people in Henry, Mercer, Rock Island, and Whiteside counties.
If they cut support staff, “It's gonna put a huge strain on us, and I think we're gonna be able to help less people,” Coulter said.
Community support
Chiquita White, a senior community resource specialist (and the only one in Moline), led many of the chants Tuesday (e.g., “What do we want? A fair contract. When do we want it? Now.” And “Union busting, that’s disgusting.”)
She worked for PSLS from 2023 to 2024, left, and returned in 2025.
“The reason why I left Prairie State the first time was a lot of the issues that we're still dealing with now,” White said.
“Realistically, the unlivable wages, the increase in insurance premiums to where people in my specific income level, we could not— it made it where I was essentially making less annually than I was because of the increase in premiums.”
“I loved what I did in the community,” she said of why she came back. “I went into a similar position at the State Treasurer's Office, but it wasn't as fulfilling at all. It was more so making the state money, and it wasn't public. It wasn't being out in the community, helping people. And, you know, I grew up around that. I'm not a Quad City native.”
“A lot of the people that work here are very passionate about what they do. The attorneys have been very supportive of us unionizing,” White said. “We are, if I'm not mistaken, we are one of the lower-paid legal aid organizations. All of the legal aid organizations have kind of faced some type of decrease in funding. However, they've been able to keep their people.”
PSLS is looking at laying off 9 paralegals, 2 office assistants, and 2 community resource specialists statewide. “Which I know, with me being a community resource specialist, we're already short,” she said, noting the Peoria office doesn’t have that position.
“And cutting that down is going to stop a lot of our ability to be able to go out and tell people about our services,” White said. “We get a lot of requests for community engagement out there, but we don't have anyone to fill that area.”
“With having no one in like Peoria or our McHenry office, those are two offices where we do not have a community resource specialist. That puts us in a position where those communities do not— may not get relevant information about our services,” she said.
“That already puts a strain on what we're able to do, and it's upsetting because there's a lot of people in these underserved communities that want our services, and we're limited to what we can do,” she added. “I think we do a good job at being effective when we can be effective, but taking away jobs from front-facing staff is not the way to go.”
“I absolutely do not believe my job is safe,” White said, noting that after the similar staffer in Peoria left, they didn’t fill that position. “Absolutely.”
“If they start this with laying off people, it'll set a precedent. It's like, what's going to happen the next time they decide to cut funding?” she said. “I feel as though we're not valued and that they are looking at— I feel as though that them laying off front-facing staff is very indicative of an organization that does not value their lower-level employees.”
“All of our jobs, of the people that are being cut, we help support the attorneys. The attorneys, if it was not for us helping the attorneys, they would have to go out and do their own community engagement,” White said. “They would have to do paralegal work along with their own work.
“So all of us working together helps everything cohesively come together,” she said. “It's upsetting, especially like I said, when you have people that legitimately love what they do. I've never worked at a job where you have people that will— that legitimately care about the population that they serve.
“The attorneys in my office are amazing,” White added. “But if you don't have the people to be in the community and talk about and share the services, the people don't know that the services are here, and then that's going to lead to a decline in clients. And then if we don't have the clients, we don't need as many people here. So to me, it's a slippery slope.”
“They had a budget deficit in 2026, but for 2027 there's no budget deficit,” Bolton said Tuesday. “In 2026, they were down $800,000 in federal funding and $300,000 in state funding. That money's back. That was what the reason they gave for the layoffs. We were like, why are you using December 2025 projections to lay off people in 2027?”
“They were supposed to lay off an attorney and they canceled that because we pointed out that they hired two attorneys last week and one this week,” he said. “So it's like they're just doing it to union bust. And we're still fighting for comparable wages for the rest of the state.”
The union represents attorneys, paralegals, community resource specialists, administrators, grant writers, and other development staff.
“Paralegals help file the cases, do drafting. Community resource specialists help connect the workers with resources, like housing and public benefits, all that,” Bolton said.
Layoffs cause reduced services
Layoffs would decrease the attorneys' capacity to provide services, he said.
“Having a paralegal expands how much you can do because they help take some of the work from you, and it's more cost-effective because they cost just 2/3 as much, half as much,” Bolton said.
“We give a lot of advice. We don't actually represent every client,” said Jennifer Beardsley, senior staff attorney in the Moline office. “We have telephone counselors who screen and give a lot of advice to people before they actually get through to the offices, because we can only take a small portion of the cases that call us because we don't have enough staff to represent every low-income person and senior that calls us.”
“There’s unfortunately no shortage of low-income people and seniors and veterans, and that's our focus,” she added. “They are laying off primarily paralegals. So right now there's about one paralegal for every three to four attorneys, and they're saying they want to go to six to nine attorneys per paralegal. That's going to make litigation much more difficult.
“Case handling, our cases and the paperwork and sending out routine letters, and they file things for us,” Beardsley said. “So it's going to make a lot more work on the staff attorneys and attorneys to do that themselves. So I do think it will reduce the number of cases we can take, especially to actually litigate in court.”
“We’re trying to get management to take a proportional hit in the layoffs so that the organization's goals remain client services focused, and also just to cut the total number of layoffs to correspond with actual economic issues,” Bolton said. “Then also living wages for folks and the ability for the union members to bargain over their working conditions in the middle of the contract.”
“We're trying to negotiate our first contract. We agreed on non-economic issues, and then it's been held up trying to come to an agreement on economic issues,” Beardsley said. “Primarily we're on to the wage issue, trying to get our wages up to living wages, especially for non-attorney staff. A lot of them are paid below a living wage in Illinois, and we think that shouldn't be so.”
PSLS management is represented by Littler Mendelson, a multi-national corporate law firm.
They have represented numerous high-profile companies in "union avoidance" and anti-union campaigns, including Amazon, Starbucks and Apple, Bolton said. PSLU is collecting petition signatures regarding the issues below -- available at pslupetition.nolsw.org. There are 432 signatures so far.
Wage increases of 2-3%
Current management proposals would provide wage increases less than 3% for attorneys, less than 2% for other staff, and with no Cost of Living Adjustment for any employees until 2028, PSLU says.
Under management’s proposal, the lowest paid workers still are not paid a living wage for even a one-person household. Management has given themselves wage increases in the range of 11-27% between 2023 and 2025 according to data on IRS Form 990, while union workers with the same level of experience have been paid at the same rate. Increases for certain members of management have been more than some employees currently earn in a year.
Attacking the stability and predictability of employees’ working conditions, PSLS is refusing to include its own long-standing remote work policy in the collective bargaining agreement, Bolton said.
Instead, PSLS insists on maintaining the right to change the company’s remote work policy at any time without bargaining with the union. In a statement addressed to management, PSLS Annual Giving Specialist Katey reminded management that unilaterally eliminating the remote work policy would “turn an unconditional, equally applied policy into many individual requests, and each one is a chance for subjectivity, judgment, and error.”
In contrast, PSLU proposals for economics, leave, and remote work are designed to stop the exorbitant costs associated with the current high rate of staff turnover and attrition. One of PSLS’s major funders, Legal Services Corporation, expressed concerns in 2025 about turnover at PSLS. The rate of turnover for 2026 is 22%. Over 45 employees in the bargaining unit have left since September 2024. That equates to losing over 325 cumulative years of service.
Positions that serve clients directly are remaining vacant for months and years. Since 2022, over half of all PSLS staff have left. This turnover has caused offices like Joliet and Kankakee to be closed for intake. The Community Engagement team lacks a Peoria Community Resource Specialist, directly impacting clients and community partners, including the Fair Housing team’s ability to work effectively.
PSLS’s proposed wage structure is not competitive and will fail to attract and retain attorneys.
Land of Lincoln Legal Aid is a similar legal aid organization that serves 65 counties in Central and Southern Illinois. PSLS’s current proposal for starting wages is 3-5% below starting wages offered by Land of Lincoln Legal Aid, even though the PSLS service area has a cost of living approximately 7% higher.
Despite the union raising all of the above concerns and holding bargaining sessions monthly, PSLS has made negligible movement on their salary proposal since November 2025. PSLU pickets for a fair contract to attract and retain excellent staff.
Brett Cummins, Chair of the PSLU Bargaining Committee and PSLS Senior Attorney, Criminal Records Relief, delivers a direct message on behalf of all members of PSLU:
“It’s time for PSLS management to come to an agreement on a fair contract that sustains and develops our common mission of providing excellent legal aid services to our clients and communities.”
The National Organization of Legal Services Workers, UAW Local 2320, represents more than 7,000 workers across the U.S.
In 2024, the organization resolved 14,569 cases (according to Cause IQ), reflecting people who received legal advice, representation, or advocacy for matters such as housing, public benefits, family law, consumer rights, and other civil issues.
Its website says the mission of PSLS “is to ensure equal access to justice and fair treatment under the law by providing legal advice and representation, advocacy, education, and outreach that serve to protect basic human needs and enforce or uphold rights.
PSLS envisions a community where all low-income, elderly and vulnerable people have ready access to legal services to meet their basic needs and where everyone knows, understands and can exercise their rights and be treated fairly in their pursuit of justice,” the site says.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
