Alika Hendricks

Dear fellow Legal Aid Ontario Lawyers,

I am asking that you re-elect me as your GTA Unit Director to continue to build the vision for effective, collaborative leadership of our union. I am grateful for the trust you placed in me as a member of our local’s governing body and as our local’s first GTA Unit Director after the election in 2019. I have the experience and the breadth of skills to effectively advocate for your interests. While I’ve been on maternity leave for the past 8 months, I can assure you that during that time, I’ve been active and plugged into the affairs of our union and plan to return to work early.

As you know, I’m dedicated to this work and have been since the beginning. In fact, I’ve been a part of our union’s organizing effort for a decade -- since 2012. I was involved in the protracted, years-long battle to secure our right to collectively bargain. In that fight for recognition, I picketed at the then premier’s office, met with my MPP and attended countless campaign organizing committee meetings. Then, I called many of you, asking you to vote in favour of the Society becoming our chosen bargaining agent.

Once our right to collectively bargain was secured, as a member of the Interim Local Committee, I served on the Bargaining Subcommittee to negotiate our first collective agreement with LAO. As you know, that first agreement will be expiring soon and we’re about to head into a new round of bargaining. We’ve put our collective agreement to the test over these past few years and we can now see the areas that have served us especially well and those which need strengthening. I encourage you to vote for me, the experienced candidate at the bargaining table.  

Back in the pre-pandemic world, I had the opportunity to meet with most of you directly. I travelled to numerous offices and courthouses across the province as part of our ‘ratification road show’, listening to you -- the members -- and responding to your questions about the collective agreement. After my election as GTA Unit Director, I visited members at every GTA office -- in Oshawa, Newmarket, Brampton, Scarborough, North York, downtown and provincial head office -- to identify your concerns and strategize solutions with you. 

The concerns raised were diverse because our membership is diverse. The GTA unit is comprised of lawyers in a variety of roles -- from trial lawyers to policy counsel, research counsel to case management counsel, family and criminal DC to immigration and clinic counsel, serving clients in both English and in French. Our issues are not all the same, but we all want to be safe at work. We want our employer to support us -- not hinder us -- and provide us with the resources we need to serve our vulnerable clients. We want fairness and transparency, flexible work, and equitable access to professional development and career advancement. I believe that our diversity, and our areas of shared interest, are strengths that can be leveraged at the bargaining table. Leveraged in the same way that they were during our organizing campaign to secure the right to collectively bargain with LAO.   

Of course, since COVID-19 came into our lives in March 2020, our work context changed dramatically. Since then, our work and work lives have largely moved online. Throughout the transition I stayed connected and assisted members with the move to working from home. I worked with several of you to hold LAO accountable to provide the necessary equipment and accommodations to make the transition to working from home as smooth as possible. 

But remote work didn’t make other work-related concerns disappear. As Unit Director, I fought for many of you with grievances and complaints relating to harassment, professional responsibilities, health and safety, and workload concerns, among other issues. I represented you in situations relating to LAO imposing unfair discipline. I met frequently with LAO’s senior management and HR to find solutions to various problems. I documented and followed up relentlessly and held LAO accountable. I assisted many of you personally, so you know how committed I am to delivering results. 

I strongly believe that to succeed we must work together. I’m a leader who helped build the relationships and the relational foundation essential to delivering real, sustainable change in our workplaces. As Unit Director I collaborated with the 13 GTA delegates to address member issues and to identify shared concerns across various offices – those thorny issues that required a more strategic approach with LAO. I also worked to launch a variety of joint committees, local advisory committees and Society committees including the Professional Development Committee, our local’s Equity Advisory Committee, the New Toronto Courthouse Advisory Committee and the Coalition of Racialized Professionals, all of which elicit members’ input and participation. 

For me, member participation is not an afterthought, it is the central tenet of a strong union.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that I know your diverse concerns -- and they matter. I’ve been systematically tackling them -- with you -- from the very outset. I believe I’m the best candidate to advocate for our diverse membership. Another round of bargaining lays just ahead. Vote for proven experience at the negotiating table. Vote for consistent, long-standing dedication to this work. Vote for effective, collaborative leadership. Vote for me as your GTA Unit Director.