By Bob Hennelly

This week, the big health care story was United Healthcare Group’s latest earnings report—the first since the murder of CEO Brian Thompson here in New York City on December.

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 Bob Hennelly

The death toll from the Los Angeles wildfires rose to 24 with another 16 people missing and the body count likely to rise. Over the weekend, firefighters made progress containing the Palisades and Eaton fires.

By Joe Maniscalco

A delegation of New York City Municipal retirees and supporters fighting back against ongoing efforts  to push 250,000 former civil servants into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan emerged from a meeting with Council Member Erik Bottcher on Friday with arguably the most clear-eyed assessment of the ongoing crisis delivered thus far.

By Joe Maniscalco

Whether you rightly want to it gall or chutzpah, the corporate profiteers peddling Medicare Advantage health insurance plans to retirees across the country have once again revealed just how craven and hollow inside they really are with their preposterous new ads promising recipients $900 grocery allowances.

By Bob Hennelly

In this episode of WBAI-Pacifica’s “What’s Going On?” with Kezia Glow, we dive right into an urgent issue affecting millions of families across the nation: child poverty. It’s a post-pandemic reality Albany refuses to address in any truly transformative way.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we dedicate the entire show to Mayor Eric Adams’ push to start encrypting NYPD radio traffic, which has up to now been accessible to both the public and the news media in real time.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we talk with UFA President Ansbro about the last minute collapse of a bi-partisan bill to fully fund the 9/11 WTC Health Program, as well as the dangerous spike in FDNY EMS response times where shockingly only one-in-five heart attack victims in New York City survives.  

By Steve Wishnia

Doctors at four of New York’s 11 public hospitals have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike after more than a year of futile contract talks.

The vote at Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital in the Bronx, Queens Hospital Center, and South Brooklyn Health, announced Dec. 19, was 97% in favor of a possible walkout, the Doctors Council SEIU said. The union represents more than 2,500 doctors at the ten hospitals where New York City Health + Hospitals has contracts with affiliates to hire them.

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.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we hear from two New York City physicians with the Doctors Council, SEIU about the lack of progress with management at Health + Hospitals Corporation, the city’s public hospital system. 

By Joe Maniscalco

The ugly confrontation between NYPD officers and striking Amazon drivers outside the corporation’s DBK4 Distribution Center in Maspeth, Queens last Thursday continues a long history of law enforcement clamping down hard on labor uprisings across the United States.

So, what happens next? And how should the House of Labor react? 

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City council member championing a bill to protect the Traditional Medicare benefits of retirees from privatization this week rejected the idea that it’s okay for his colleagues to continue sitting around and letting the courts decide what happens next.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we hear how through months of collective action ten thousand members of 32 BJ SEIU working at the region’s airports run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will see a significant pay boost of $2.25  over the next 13 months—and $25 by 2032.

By Steve Wishnia

New York State’s highest court on Dec. 17 unanimously ruled that the city must pay for traditional Medicare for its retired employees and can’t offer them only a private Medicare Advantage plan.

By Steve Wishnia

New York City Councilmember Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) is lead sponsor of the bill that would require NYC to continue offering retired municipal workers traditional Medicare plans, instead of switching them to for-profit Medicare Advantage plans—but none of his 17 colleagues in the Council’s Progressive Caucus have signed on as cosponsors.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Municipal retirees fighting back against the campaign to strip them of their Traditional Medicare coverage and into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan were once again denied a seat at the table this week, so just like the late Shirley Chisholm urged—they brought folding chairs.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “We Decide: America at the Crossroads 2024  from WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network hosted by Jenna Flanagan—we’re going down to North Carolina to see just what activists working with the Rev. Dr. William Barber and the Moral Monday movement are doing to bring more transparency to what they contend is an ongoing anti-democratic power grab by the state GOP.

By Joe Maniscalco

“This is why.”

Advocates for home care workers in New York are holding up the ongoing failure to end slavish 24-hour shifts, coupled with the state Department of Labor’s sudden decision to scrap a widespread probe into wage theft as prime examples of why Democrats and progressives are losing ground to Republicans and the right wing.

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.