By Steve Wishnia

To the Trump regime, 29-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an “enemy alien.” In a brief filed with the Supreme Court April 7, Solicitor General D. John Sauer called him “a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization,” to wit, “a ranking member of the MS-13 gang.”

War Stories By Phil Cohen

I scheduled a war council with committee members and stewards for Thursday afternoon. “Talk is getting us nowhere so we’ve got to up the ante to get their attention. I want to schedule shift meetings for next week and use them to organize a picket line the following week.”

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the shutdown period, I received a Cone Mills document filed in court for the purpose of justifying bankruptcy despite a recent return to profitability, explaining its primary liabilities:

A huge debt and huge dividend payouts to class A shareholders are bleeding the company. Interest rates and preferred dividends are exorbitant, and prevent the company from paying off $145 million in debts.

There was no reference to labor costs.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

For over a century, Cone Mills was an iconic denim manufacturer, spinning bales of raw cotton into yarn which was then woven into enormous rolls of cloth. Once the material had gone through the final stages of finishing, it was sold to large jean companies. Levi Strauss was their largest customer.

By Steve Wishnia

AUSTIN, Tex.—Carrying signs that read “Some Cuts Never Heal,” about two dozen nurses and supporters marched up to Sen. John Cornyn’s office in downtown Austin March 20, protesting the Trump-Musk administration’s proposed massive cuts to Medicaid.

By Joe Maniscalco

In an exclusive interview with Work-Bites in Times Square on Tuesday night, UAW Local 2710 President Grant Miner said the Trump administration’s naked attempt to crush the Columbia University’s student worker union is all part of an overall attack on labor and First Amendment rights. 

In other words: We’re all next.

By Steve Wishnia

When National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo was fired on Jan. 27, she received an email on behalf of Donald Trump. It said he had no confidence she would faithfully execute his objectives.

By Joe Maniscalco

“We definitely need to do something.”

Scores of working class New Yorkers—including laid off federal workers and anxious retirees—already pushed to the wall three months into the new Trump administration took to the streets of Lower Manhattan this weekend in a rebellious act of defiance that helped dispel some of the fear many have been experiencing.

By Ryn Gargulinski

So that means you’re unemployed? That was the first question I would often get when I started full-time freelancing in 2009, and the question usually came from someone in pastel-colored scrubs.

By Steve Wishnia

Donald Trump and JD Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky like two petty mobsters telling a bodega owner that they now own 50% of his business, two thin-skinned bullies berating him for “disrespect” because he wasn’t gushing thank-yous for the great deal they were giving him.

By Steve Wishnia

“How do you spell corruption? E-L-O-N!” about 250 picketers chanted in front of 26 Federal Plaza Feb. 19, in the first of two lower Manhattan protests to defend federal workers from the personnel purge by Donald Trump and his hectobillionaire hatchet man, Elon Musk. Five hours later, a crowd of about 750 filled the concrete island in Foley Square for an after-work rally.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the spring of 2008, 49-year-old Steve Garrett worked a second shift in the ICQA (Incoming Quality Control Assurance) Department at the Kmart Distribution Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. This small department was responsible for inventory control, product inspection, and organizing storage space in the huge warehouse. Forklifts were used to transport pallets of merchandise for these purposes.

By Steve Wishnia

“We are putting out a distress signal to the American people,” says Chris Dols of the Federal Unionists Network.

The group, founded two years ago by leaders of locals in various federal employees’ unions, is organizing protests February 19 against the Trump-Musk administration’s assault on federal workers. It’s using the slogan “save our services.”

By Steve Wishnia

A federal judge in Boston on February 10 continued his halt on the Trump administration’s scheme to slash the federal workforce by offering to pay workers through September if they quit by Feb. 6.

By Steve Wishnia

In his first two weeks as President, Donald Trump launched a frontal assault on American workers, axing thousands of federal employees, illegally firing members of the National Labor Relations Board to deny it a functioning quorum, and staging immigration raids that snagged Puerto Ricans and military veterans.

By Joe Maniscalco

Things are bad for U.S. workers and they only appear to be getting worse. But how much do any of us who have never had to do it, know about what it’s really like being a migrant worker forced to leave behind everything and everyone that matters to us just to survive?

War Stories By Phil Cohen

In 1943, Frank Rizzo joined the Philadelphia Police Department, worked his way up through the ranks to captain, and was eventually appointed police commissioner in 1967. He not only supported, but encouraged police brutality, racism, and corruption throughout the department. Four years later, he was elected mayor.

By Ryn Gargulinski

The hangers on the floor were the last straw. The hangers had been accompanied by tissue paper squares and plastic bags on the floor, with more papers, bags, hangers and random shirts strewn across the front counter next to the register.

That’s what I walked into one morning at the shirt shop at my part-time gig – a colossal mess. My mind went into tantrum overdrive.

WAR STORIES By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of Phil’s three-part saga chronicling his harrowing days trying to survive on the streets of Tehran and Kabul just prior to the Iranian Revolution and Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. 

We finally arrived at Kabul’s bus station at 10 p.m., where several taxis waited outside.  I glanced at my notes for the recommended hotel and appropriate cab fare, entered the rear door of the first car in line, stated my destination, requested the price upfront, and was told an amount consistent with my information.

WAR STORIES By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: This is Part II of Phil’s three-part saga chronicling his harrowing days trying to eke out a living on the streets of Tehran and Kabul just prior to the Iranian Revolution and Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. 

The guards aroused travelers at dawn and pointed us toward several white vans lined up near the crossing. I was instructed to board one of them, surrendered my bedroll to be tied on the roof but forcibly knocked the driver’s hand away as he reached for the guitar. When the rear door finally closed, I found myself in the most crowded environment I’d ever experienced. It made the New York subway during rush hour seem spacious by comparison.