By Joe Maniscalco

UFT President Micheal Mulgrew’s appearance on the latest episode of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” show might be the closest he’s come to conceding he screwed up when deciding to back the plan to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees and their families into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.

By Bob Hennelly

The Trump/Musk junta is doubling down on its assaults on Main Street and MLK Boulevard with plans to ZERO out Head Start, an educational lifeline for 800,000. Since President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, a succession of Republican and Democratic Party administrations have supported the program that helped 30 million children at the most pivotal time in their educational development.

By Bob Hennelly

Pope Francis has died at 88 years old. Francis, a tireless champion of social justice, was the first pontiff from the Americas and the first Jesuit to be elevated to the Papacy. In the final months of his life he blasted the Trump/Musk junta plan for mass deportations. 

By Bob Hennelly

On Thursday, April 18, the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees held their much-anticipated Mayoral debate at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. 

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “We Decide: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan we’re looking at the Trump/ Musk Junta Reign of Error; the latest on Mahmoud Khalil’s fight for freedom; the Non-Violent Medicaid army on the March; and more radio dispatches from April 5.

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 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 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 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.

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:

By Joe Maniscalco 

Arguably the most potent and powerful figure in the labor movement today has just declared that American workers—no matter what you do or what sector you’re in—now have “very few options but to join together to organize for a general strike.”

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re talking about UAW 9A telling its members not back Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo for mayor. Last week, UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla and Jane Fox, a member of UAW 2325 and chair of UAW Region 9A NYC Area Political Council, strongly urged union members and their supporters  NOT to rank former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams in the upcoming June Primary.

By Bob Hennelly

The Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour is kicking off Women’s History Month reflecting on the recent loss of civil rights leader Hazel Dukes, 92. FDNY Firefighter Regina Wilson, outgoing president of the Vulcan Society and the Vice President of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, talks about Dukes’ legacy, as well as the Trump administration’s assault on the federal civil service.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, Anne Goldman, RN, head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT and Rebecca Morogiello, RN, and case manager at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, join us to explain how the need for safer staffing prompted the union’s recent vote to strike when their current contract expires later this week on Feb. 28.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is talking about the status of embattled Mayor Eric Adams.

By Bob Hennelly

Less than a month into Donald Trump’s second presidential term, his full court press to let billionaire Elon Musk dismantle the federal government is getting major pushback. On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re looking at the protests that are cropping up in Washington D.C. and dozens of states.

By Bob Hennelly

In the first half of this week’s episode of “What’s Going On?” we explore the difficult position physicians working in New York City’s Health + Hospitals face when it comes to treating immigrants. Last week,  the municipal hospital system told their clinicians that it is “illegal to intentionally protect a person who is in the United States unlawfully from detention.” H+H further warned, “You should not try to actively help a person avoid being found by ICE.”

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “What’s Going On: The Friday Labor Edition, hosts Keziah Glow and Mary Pizzitola, retired FDNY EMT and president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees interview Alex Lawson, the executive director of Social Security Works. 

By Bob Hennelly

On the latest episode of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” radio show, Palestinian rights activist and author Linda Sarsour talks about Donald Trump’s Gaza grab.