By Joe Maniscalco

Legendary union organizer and author Phil Cohen has seen a lot over his decades-long involvement in the American labor movement. But even Phil was shocked to learn during the latest Labor and Healthcare Confidential episode on WBAI that some of the most powerful labor leaders in New York State continue to try and undermine legislation blocking the diminishment of retiree healthcare.

By Bob Hennelly

This past weekend, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) was denied access to detainees at Delaney Hall, he told reporters on Saturday. Kim told reporters that this was the first time that GEO, the private company that runs the site, had obstructed his ability to provide legally-required Congressional oversight.

By Joe Maniscalco

Eighty-one days have elapsed since New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin stood on the sidewalk with home care workers outside City Hall and promised to bring Intro. 303—the No More 24 bill—to the floor for a vote.

By Jillian Jonas

Is NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new housing plan and relevant budget allocations what we expected from a member of DSA? Why is a Democratic Socialist advocating privatization for NYCHA, especially after years of evidence it doesn't work, and the only true beneficiaries are members of the real estate class?

By Steve Wishnia

Four years after Nicole Munoz was fired from her job as a bathroom cleaner in a Midtown office building, and nine months after the state Division of Human Rights held there was “probable cause” to believe it was retaliation for her filing a sexual-harassment complaint, she is seeking compensation from her former employer, the SL Green real-estate company.

By Joe Maniscalco

A coalition of both active workers and retirees from New York City’s largest public service union is defying union leadership and calling on City Council Speaker Julie Menin to back a bill banning round-the-clock shifts in the home care industry.

By Bob Hennelly

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has announced a reset for the policing around Delaney Hall, the controversial private immigration prison operated by the GEO Group, a major donor to President Trump.

By Joe Maniscalco

It’s just after 9 p.m. in the fall of 1992 and union organizer Phil Cohen is inside a dingy cement-block building in Cornelius, North Carolina wondering if he’s quick enough to pull the .38 special in his shoulder holster before the two irate Klansmen in front of him start shooting.

By Steve Wishnia

Saying that a 1,000-unit Harlem development approved by the City Council last year does not include housing neighborhood residents can actually afford, about 25 people rallied on the steps of City Hall May 27 to demand that the city require it to include 400 apartments for working-class people.

By Joe Maniscalco

The head of the largest public sector union in the City of New York and his lieutenants said a lot jaw-dropping things this past Wednesday in opposition to No More 24 advocates fighting to end exploitation and institutionalized wage theft in the home care industry.

By Bob Hennelly

In this special edition of Caribbean Voices and Beyond with Issac Ferguson we look at the roughly 300 detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey who started a hunger strike and work stoppage last Friday night to protest inhumane conditions inside the privately-owned immigration prison operated by GEO, a major Trump donor.

Editor’s Note: The following is an open letter to retirees from New York Public Library Retirees Association President Ray Markey and VP Jane Kunstler

Dear Retiree,

The New York Public Library and the District Council 37/The New York Public Health & Security Plan Trust have been paying all Medicare Part B eligible retirees 80% of our contribution, not 100%. The Trust letter of 2025 writes, “we have decided again this year to reimburse the 2024 Medicare Part B premium at 80% of the base cost.” This has been happening since 2017.

By Steve Wishnia

Few people say they support the current system of paying home health aides who do 24-hour shifts for only 13 hours—even as they oppose efforts to end it. “We all recognize the onerous conditions some home care workers face. Every worker deserves a decent wage for every minute they work,” the Legal Aid Society wrote in March, joined by the DC37 union and a group of disabled people’s organizations, in a letter urging the City Council to reject legislation to prohibit 24-hour shifts.

By Joe Maniscalco

Ugly tensions erupted outside City Hall on Wednesday as workers and advocates fighting to end round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry marched down Broadway and crashed District Council 37’s rally against the proposed ban.

By Bob Hennelly

This past week Mayor Mamdani delivered a master class in how to completely reset the annual municipal budget conversation while delivering a $124.7 billion budget that on paper zeroed out a $12 billion budget gap looming in no small part due to cynical under budgeting by the previous Adams administration.

By Joe Maniscalco

Opponents of legislation ending round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry are expected to argue at a rally in City Hall Park on Wednesday that while “abusive”—little can be done to change a system widely acknowledged as nothing less than modern day slavery. 

By Bob Hennelly

Trump’s ongoing illegal war on Iran and increasing efforts at voter suppression here at home continue to spark resistance across the nation.

By Steve Wishnia

A quartet of people in wheelchairs, joined by a handful of supporters, protested outside City Councilmember Christopher Marte’s Chinatown district office May 12, saying that Intro 303, his bill to prohibit 24-hour shifts for home-care aides, would lead to patients getting their care cut off.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Several years ago, Phil Cohen authored an indispensable training manual in labor law for rank and file workers called “Enforcing Your Rights.” Work-Bites has been happy to bring you the serialization of that book with this concluding chapter on Just Cause.

If you ask most workers about the most important part of a union contract, they’ll usually say money or seniority. But both answers are wrong. The most important part of a union contract lies in two simple words: Just Cause.  Sometimes buried within the most unlikely contract article, you’ll find, “the company can discipline or fire employees for just cause.”

By Joe Maniscalco

The hard-fought struggle to finally end institutionalized wage theft and round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry entered a new phase this week with a possible vote a bill nobody seems to want.