New York’s powerhouse healthcare union says the city’s largest nonprofit for homeless youth has embarked on a union-busting campaign, dragging out contract talks for more than four years and firing employees for participating in union activities.

Covenant House New York receives millions in public funding to provide shelter for young people experiencing homelessness or who are victims of human trafficking.

Employees voted to unionize with 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East in 2022, citing the need for better pay. Since then, Covenant House's fight with its union has quietly snowballed, prompting a federal judge to issue the nonprofit a rare rebuke over failing to bargain in good faith and more than a dozen City Council members to sign a letter questioning Covenant House’s conduct toward its workers.

Eight current and former employees also told Gothamist they worried whether the high staff turnover and low morale is affecting the young people they’re supposed to be helping, especially if adults they’ve formed relationships with are suddenly gone.

Labor experts say it’s unusual for a mission-driven organization to push back so aggressively against employee bargaining units even as unionizing among the city’s nonprofits grows increasingly common.

“For a nonprofit that is supposedly acting in the public interest to use resources to fight in this way, strikes me as inconsistent with a mission to serve the public, especially since their defenses are extremely weak,” said Ellen Dichner, a distinguished lecturer at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and former chief counsel to the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under the Obama administration.

Covenant House New York’s CEO Shakeema North-Albert declined an interview request, citing the ongoing and confidential federal mediation process and active litigation. But Pam Sandonato, a spokesperson for Covenant House emailed a statement in response to a detailed list of questions.

“We are committed to bargaining in good faith and reaching an agreement that preserves our ability to continue providing critical services to young people experiencing homelessness. Throughout these negotiations, our focus has remained on the youth we serve. In fact, not only have our services remained strong, but we are on track to serve more young people this year than in either of the previous two years,” Sandonato said.

Leigh Howard, executive vice president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, which represents about 160 Covenant House employees, said Covenant House is using stall tactics to delay negotiations, gave non-unionized workers pay increases and retaliated against known supporters of the union.

“I've never seen anything like it,” Howard said.  ”Their strategy is to draw it out as long as possible, and to drain our resources and the workers' will.”

In recent years, those tactics have gained national attention when they were used by companies like Amazon and Starbucks, she said.

Howard said even when 1199 SEIU negotiates against employers resistant to labor unions, they’re usually able to reach a contract deal that doesn’t stretch out four years.

Several board members — who include directors and principals at Goldman Sachs, Ernst & Young and Alliance Global Partners — didn’t respond to requests for comment. Don Carmody, chief counsel for Covenant House New York, also declined to comment when reached by phone.

City Councilmembers Althea Stevens and Shirley Aldebol, who head the committee on children and youth and the committee on labor, wrote a letter to Covenant House’s CEO and board chairman in March. They and 17 other council members raised concerns about the termination of five bargaining committee members.

“The young people at Covenant House deserve a conflict-free setting to receive services,” they wrote.

Stevens and Aldebol didn’t return requests for comment.

‘Unusual’ resistance

The current and former employees say they are afraid to mention the union at work for fear of retaliation. Three current employees who spoke to Gothamist did not want to be named for fear they would be fired. They say they’ve seen several of their coworkers fired or pushed out who were active members of the bargaining committee or vocal about supporting the union.

Last fall, a U.S. District Court Judge issued an injunction to Covenant House, ordering the organization to refrain from “threatening employees with discipline” over protected collective bargaining rights, hand over information required for contract talks and meet with the union at least twice a month for four hours to negotiate.

Data shared by 1199 SEIU show these moves are uncommon; just nine injunctions were issued in 2025 though more than 12,000 labor charges are filed yearly.

An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board — an independent federal agency that investigates labor disputes — also found Covenant House violated federal labor law in a decision issued in September. Covenant House has filed “exceptions” to the decision, which is not final until the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington D.C. makes its final determination.

In its legal briefs, Covenant House refuted the findings and justified its conduct against employees they argued should not have been part of the union.

“Our first and highest obligation is to the safety and well-being of every young person who walks through our doors,” CEO North-Albert wrote in response to the City Council in April, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Gothamist.

She said employees were terminated for time theft, that the union had turned bargaining sessions into rallies and illegally recorded meetings. She added that the nonprofit had no duty to bargain over decisions involving how they operate the service agency.

Covenant House New York has a multimillion-dollar budget and receives about $22 million in government grants, according to its financial records.

In court papers, Covenant House said that two employees should be exempt from the union because the law excludes those who are in managerial roles or confidential employees, who have access to sensitive information used in labor relations.

Labor experts said those disputes are supposed to happen early in the process, before a vote to form a union occurs. Records show Covenant House initially agreed to a list of employee positions that were eligible for the union, before changing its mind, and contesting two titles they previously said could be part of the union. The two employees at the center of the dispute left the organization and are no longer employed at Covenant House.

Gabrielle Perez, who worked as a  program compliance coordinator until she left in 2024, was one of those employees. She said she ultimately resigned because she felt threatened by management due to her role in the union.

Perez said a few employees worked second jobs to make ends meet and while she was there workers who weren’t in the union received raises; while some union members received promotions to titles that weren’t covered by the union.

The union said some employees in the bargaining unit working under city contracts did receive cost of living increases because it was required by the city.

“They found all this money to restructure positions and everything like that, but that money could have also been just used to increase the salary of case managers, resident advisors, custodians, cooks, any of the positions in the direct service,” she said.

$422,000 on legal fees

Julio Bonifacio, 39, said he worked in the facilities department for 18 years before he was fired last year, six days before his son was born. Bonifacio said he made $19.18 an hour.

”The main thing was for us the mission, I like helping the youths because they know us, and we, we kind of know them, too. It was basically like a family,” he said. The union is fighting his termination, claiming retaliation.

1199 SEIU said it filed additional unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board this year alleging Covenant House terminated three workers, including Bonifacio, for union activities.

Covenant House workers said young people who went through traumatic experiences often found connection with certain employees and it could be disruptive when people are forced to leave the organization.

“Covenant House is a chance for them to develop healthy relationships with safe adults. And for those safe adults to be fired and escorted out without having a chance to say goodbye is extremely harmful to those young people,” said Molly Gearan, a former resident advisor and case manager at Covenant House, who resigned last fall.

Three current employees, who asked not to be named, shared similar concerns and said the organization has lost a lot of good employees who cared about the youth.

Covenant House’s financial documents show the organization’s spending on legal fees increased more than six fold from $66,000 in 2022 to $422,000 in 2024.

“The trend has been with the nonprofits groups that they have been hiring anti-union firms to negotiate these contracts and have been successful in stalling negotiation,” said John Edmonds, assistant business manager OPEIU Local 153, which represents several nonprofits.