By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we speak with James Henry, a Yale University Global Justice Fellow and economist about the week that was and the week that lies ahead—including a noontime rally outside Mercedes-Benz Manhattan where workers will push back against union-busting bosses. 

By Bob Hennelly

On Friday, China responded to President Donald Trump's 34 percent tariff with a 34 percent tariff of their own on the US. 

Over the weekend, financial markets in Asia continued the slide Wall Street experienced last week when investors lost $4 trillion in two days. The more than ten percent drop experienced by the Standards & Poor 500 Index at the end of last week was the biggest drop since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020. 

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.”

By Bob Hennelly

This past Saturday, millions of Americans turned out at one of the events planned to protest President Trump's policies that include mass firings of essential federal workers, ending collective bargaining, shuttering of federal agencies created by Congress, as well as deporting people without any due process. 

By Joe Maniscalco

Elderly retail worker Thea Kindos stood out from the tens of  thousands of other protesters who marched down 5th Avenue in New York City on Saturday afternoon to denounce the Trump administration and what many fear is his all-out assault on whatever might be left of American democracy.

By Bob Hennelly

From noon until 3 p.m. today [Sat. April 5] WBAI's producers and public affairs team will bring you LIVE rolling coverage of the labor and social justice protests scheduled for New York City and Washington D.C. against the Trump/Musk junta's assault on workers' rights and the U.S. Constitution. 

Break Time By Ryn Gargulinski

Let’s say you find a new home that’s perfect for you. The right price, the right size, and a beautiful interior sporting your favorite color paint. You’ll take it, right?

So you put down your deposit and wait for the move-in date, only to find “advancements” and “exciting updates” have been made to your once-perfect abode.

By Bob Hennelly

On Friday, lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil—the Columbia University peace activist and Green Card holder who was arrested by ICE and sent to Louisiana—were in federal court in Newark, New Jersey without any charges being filed. Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdallah, who is due to give birth next month, was also in court. Outside, several hundred protestors turned out to support the Khalil family. 

We share our reporter's notebook. We also talk with Amy Arundell about her bid to grab the UFT leadership away from current President Michael Mulgrew.

By Steve Wishnia

Chanting “No more backroom deals,” about 100 people, mostly current and retired city workers, protested March 27 against a state-budget proposal that would delay fully funding pensions for almost 600,000 people until 2045.

By Joe Maniscalco

District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido continues to scare the bejesus out of the New York City Council.

In 2023, the head of the largest public sector union in town threatened to “withdraw support…money…endorsements—everything” from any New York City Council member blocking his attempts to help Mayor Eric Adams push the city’s 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.

And he hasn’t let up since.

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.”

By Joe Maniscalco

Municipal workers—both active and retired—are being urged to rally outside New York State Governor Kathy Hochul’s Third Avenue offices on Thursday, March 27, to protest a new money-saving scheme many fear could blow holes in their pensions.

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.

By Steve Wishnia

Last weekend, I read my 5-year-old granddaughter Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909, Michelle Markel’s children’s book about Clara Lemlich, the young woman who helped lead the “uprising of the 20,000”—the 1909-10 strike by women garment workers in New York.

By Bob Hennelly

This week on the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour we mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in lower Manhattan when 146 mostly young immigrant women died a gruesome death back in 1911.

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.

Work-Bites

WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” program and host Bob Hennelly devoted a special three-hour live broadcast on March 15 to New York City labor’s march against the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts. We bring you the exclusive coverage in its entirety below: