By Steve Wishnia

In 2008, I covered the New Hampshire primary for a small New York biweekly, traveling across the state from Manchester, a gentrifying industrial city with a 1940s-neon downtown, to the Ivy League college town of Hanover, talking to voters and going to candidates’ rallies. Driving into Claremont, a town of 13,000 on the Connecticut River, was like going back to the South Bronx of 1982. The road winding uphill from the bridge was lined with the dark, broken-brick ruins of mills and factories.

By Phil Cohen

During the 1980’s, Cone Mills was one of America’s largest textile corporations with plants sprawled across the Carolinas, manufacturing denim for Levis and other jean companies. In 1984, a hostile takeover by Western Pacific was thwarted through a leveraged buyout by 47 Cone executives who acquired all shares of stock and took the company private.

By Joe Maniscalco

Between trying to chase down cagey MTA spokespeople to quiz them on potentially deadly working conditions in the subways, and various local elected officials on why they seem all too happy to sell out New York City municipal retirees and steal their healthcare — I lean back, pick up my cheap Squier Mustang, and appreciate a little band from Seattle playing through the laptop speakers.

Mudhoney. Great stuff.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

This past Monday night, as I was watching MSNBC’s hyped up coverage of the Iowa Republican caucus and Steve Kornaki offering a county-by-county breakdown of how former President Donald Trump had carried the day with around 56,000 votes, not even ten percent of the state’s 752,000 registered Republicans, I flashed back to another GOP primary night here in New Jersey almost twenty years ago.

By Bob Hennelly

The 9/11 responder and survivor community are mourning the death of retired North Arlington, New Jersey Police Chief Joe Zadroga, a powerful voice in the campaign to pass and then to extend the James Zadroga 9/11 WTC Health and Compensation Act, named for his son, an NYPD Detective who died in 2006 as a consequence  of his exposure to the air in lower Manhattan in the months after the attack.

By Bob Hennelly

This Martin Luther King Day comes just weeks after a year that’s been dubbed “the year of the strike” because in 2023 there were well over 300 such work stoppages involving 450,000 union workers willing to take the risk of walking out on their employer, a 900 percent increase from just a few years earlier.

By Robert Ovetz

Although I do not make new year’s resolutions, I do set goals. My goals this year are focused on the workers movement. If we are going to build on the momentum of the labor movement over the past two years and bring about real change, we need to radically alter our perspective.

By Joe Maniscalco

Imagine watching an affluent white lady so giddy about the shipment of legal cannabis she just ordered online that she immediately empties every bottle of red wine in the house down the Kitchen sink, and the next second is on the phone inviting the rest of the gals over because — woohoo — they’re gonna be getting high without the hangover!

By Phil Cohen

Cornelius, North Carolina is located between Statesville and Charlotte. The small towns in this region have long been a Klan stronghold. During 1987, a Foamex plant in Cornelius signed a union contract with ACTWU (currently named Workers United.) The driving force among employees throughout the organizing campaign had been three Klansmen who worked as mechanics.

By Ryn Gargulinski

As I was sloshing through the extraordinary amount of junk mail that somehow makes it into my email inbox these days, I saw one that was a big red flag.  

The message started: “Dear Amazon Prime Member.” Uh oh. Anytime there’s an email starting with a “Dear” followed by a “Member” it usually means whatever you’re a member of is jacking up the rates. 

By Joe Maniscalco

Photojournalists and reporters documenting the tiny white bundles being set down solemnly on the sidewalk near West 40th Street and Broadway on Thursday afternoon were warned the numbers would soon grow into the hundreds and quickly fill the space.

By Joe Maniscalco

When the United States government finally decides to an end the systemic slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza, it’ll largely be because the American labor movement has finally decided to flex its collective muscle and fully reclaim its role as “the conscience of America.”

By Robert Ovetz

One of my unions’ current CBAs has a new form of compensation for excess workload. This new language recognizes that faculty, counselors, librarians and coaches are performing unwaged labor “mentoring, advising, and outreach, to support underserved, first-generation, and/or underrepresented students” and provides temporary release time to do the work.

By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: In case you missed it, here’s Part I and Part II of this special “War Stories” series.

On February 21, I attended a labor management meeting with plant manager Justin Scarbrough and the Local 294-T committee to discuss Jessie’s situation. Sometimes, it’s easier to resolve certain issues during an informal meeting before the polarizing impact of a grievance hearing.

By Bob Hennelly 

The Biden administration’s failure to address the immigration crisis — as it was ending billions in local COVID aid — is deepening an urban crisis that’s continued to get worse as COVID receded, according to John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union. Samuelsen’s union represents 155,000 workers across the country in the airline, railroad, transit, university, utility, and service sectors.

The TWU president warns there’s ample evidence this beltway inattention to America’s urban centers is causing a major political realignment on the ground that could kneecap Democrats’ prospects in 2024…

By Phil Cohen

Jessie called during December, 2019. “I got notified I got to go see Dr. Yates, who did my surgery. I was wondering if you could come with me.”

I asked why and she said, “There’s things I need you to see.”

I agreed to the unusual request and the appointment was scheduled for January 2. I told her to present me as an old friend, accompanying her for moral support. The doctor would be on his best behavior if he even suspected I was her union rep.

By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: Phil Cohen is a union organizer and author who’s seen a lot during his many years in the labor movement. He has graciously agreed to share some of his “War Stories” with Work-Bites. Here is the first installment in an ongoing series…

On August 11, 2018, I attended a victory picnic in Eden, North Carolina with members of Workers United Local 294-T. We were celebrating the defeat of their employer’s illegal union busting plot at the Mohawk Industries plant where they worked. Committee members tended the grills. Some brought side dishes.

By Ryn Gargulinski

The day came when I absolutely, positively, no-bones-about-it hated my desk. I hated it so much I could no longer even sit there. That day arrived after I parted ways with a work-from-home job that had kept me chained to that desk for 10-hour days with tracking software — for two years straight.

Ugh. My mind was numb. My body was probably showing signs of that sitting disease thing. And my soul rebelled in a big way, refusing to sit at that desk for even a minute!

By Steve Wishnia

Swedish postal workers are refusing to deliver mail or packages to Tesla facilities in order to support a strike by mechanics at the company’s service centers there. It is one of many solidarity actions by Swedish unions that would be illegal under U.S. law.

By Joe Maniscalco

More Americans are taking their demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to the streets — but it continues to be a different story in the workplace where many are feeling pressure from their their bosses — and sometimes, their unions — to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.