Politics
CPCS employees would be able to join the majority of state employees who are allowed to collectively bargain.
Employees of the Committee for Public Counsel Services are asking Massachusetts voters to give them the ability to collectively bargain — a right given to most state-level employees — following decades of advocacy without progress.
These employees, also known as public defenders, unsuccessfully attempted to unionize through petitions to the commonwealth’s labor relations boards and bills introduced in the legislative session.
This led CPCS employees to put the decision in voters’ hands with Ballot Question 2 — one of nine on the ballot in November.
Ballot Question 2 would amend the Massachusetts statute on labor relations for public employees to explicitly include CPCS employees alongside employees of other state agencies like the lottery commission, department of transportation, and alcoholic beverage control commission.
Public defenders have attempted to unionize at least three times in the past, as far back as 1979 and as recently as 2015. However, the commonwealth denied these petitions each time because the statutes didn’t explicitly mention CPCS as an agency that can unionize.
“For whatever reason, CPCS has just sort of been carved out,” said Finn Collom, a public defender speaking to Boston.com as a member of the Yes on 2 campaign.
State senators and delegates have introduced bills to permit CPCS unionization in each of the last five legislative sessions, but the issue has failed to reach the governor’s desk each time.
Shira Diner, a lecturer at the Boston University School of Law and immediate past president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told Boston.com the public defenders are pursuing this “one other possible avenue.”
“This has been going on for years and years and years,” Diner said. “I think that the folks there at CPCS have just realized the legislature isn’t going to do this on their own.”
The omission could be in part because of the agency’s placement on the organizational chart, said Evan Horowitz, the executive director of Tufts University’s Tisch College Center for State Policy Analysis.
CPCS falls under the judicial branch of government, but the agency can’t bargain with the judicial branch. Rather, it would need to bargain with the state government’s executive branch.
“[It’s] just a bunch of administrative stuff, so Question 2 would resolve that,” Horowitz said.
The indigent defense system
Public defenders are one half of the Massachusetts indigent defense system — a system that provides attorneys to criminal defendants who can’t afford one, per the Sixth Amendment.
While Ballot Question 2 is solely focused on public defenders, the other half of the indigent defense system is made up of bar advocates, private attorneys who contract with the commonwealth to represent those clients.
In May 2025, many bar advocates refused to accept cases due to a compensation rate they felt was insufficient. The work stoppage led to a judicial backlog and the release of defendants who were without representation.
In an effort to end the work stoppage, Gov. Maura Healey approved a pay bump for bar advocates in August 2025. The legislature also gave $40 million to CPCS to hire more than 300 new staff attorneys.
“They’re obviously separate issues the two groups are facing, but it is all related to this idea of: Are we putting in enough resources to make sure we have an adequate indigent defense system?” Diner asked.
In the wake of the work stoppage, the Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General released an analysis in June alleging the commonwealth’s indigent defense system is “inefficient and operates with impunity.” The analysis said CPCS has “too many supervisors” and doesn’t assign enough cases to its staff attorneys.
However, CPCS disputed the report in a 400-plus-page response, refuting that their attorneys could take on more work.
What would Ballot Question 2 do?
If the ballot question is approved, Massachusetts statutes about labor relations for public employees would be amended to include CPCS employees.
The approved ballot question would not automatically create a CPCS union. Rather, the path to unionization would be opened for the CPCS employees.
CPCS employees could then join the ranks of other unionized public defenders around the country, including in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New York City.
If the ballot question does not get approved, nothing will change.
Reasons to support
Many public defenders will admit they didn’t enter the career for the money. Public defender jobs are some of the lowest-paying in the legal field, and Massachusetts has one of the lowest compensation rates in the country, according to The Boston Globe.
But, Diner said, many public defenders “believe in the work” of providing a service to a community in need.
That doesn’t mean the mounting costs of living in the commonwealth coupled with sometimes-crippling law school debt don’t lead some public defenders to a breaking point.
“We love our work, and we love the community that we serve,” Collom said. “At a certain point sometimes it just becomes not financially feasible.”
It’s a reason why Diner said retention has been a problem at CPCS “for years.”
Whenever a public defender leaves, their caseload needs to be redistributed, adding stress to other attorneys and clients. Similarly, the incoming attorneys need training and supervising, pulling resources away from other parts of the system, Diner said.
“There’s a reason they call it practicing law,” she said. “If people are leaving the public defender’s office after three years, after four years, that’s just when they’re starting to hit their stride.”
But the push towards unionization isn’t just about money, Diner said. Rather, she sees it as a way to create a more stable indigent defense system.
Ultimately, Collom said the public defenders just want a “seat at the table” when it comes to working conditions.
“No person who’s facing criminal charges does well with a public defender who is burnt out, who is tired, who has not had their voice heard at the workplace,” Collom said. “We’re just asking for the same rights to make that decision [to unionize] as any other group of workers in the Commonwealth.”
Reasons to oppose
There are no organized opponents to Ballot Question 2, according to the state’s voter guide. Horowitz, the Tufts professor, said someone usually steps forward to pen an opposition.
“It just speaks to how bizarre the ballot question system is, and how strange this particular question is, even within the universe of ballot questions,” Horowitz said.
The opposition in the voter guide cites a legislative majority report from earlier this year — a report where the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions voted to take no action against the petition.
The report presented the argument that unionization could disrupt the agency’s supervisory frameworks and lines of authority, ultimately creating “inefficiencies.”
Several entities remain neutral on the question.
A CPCS spokesperson told Boston.com that the agency takes no position on the ballot question. Neither does the Sixth Amendment Center, a national nonprofit advocating for improved public defense.
“The key is making sure that if there is an agreement, there is not a negative impact on the constitutional right to counsel,” Executive Director Aditi Goel told Boston.com.
In doing so, Goel emphasized CPCS having the “flexibility” to handle sudden swells of cases around the commonwealth.
Horowitz, who has not taken a position on any ballot question, said one potential risk is that bargaining for better wages, for example, could tighten the agency’s budget and stretch its ability to cover cases. Additionally, the way the negotiations would be set up could lead to delays or problems.
But, Horowitz said, the lack of opposition to the question proves the “risk” can’t be too high.
“If these were huge risks for the commonwealth, someone would be screaming about them,” he said. “That tells you they can’t be huge risks, but those are the kinds of things that voters should be thinking about.”
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