Listen: Safe Staffing Matters; NYC’s Mayor Targets the Homeless

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is attempting to end the city’s legal obligation to provide shelter to those who need it.

By Bob Hennelly

On this week’s episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour Judy Danella, president of United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 — the union on strike for safer staffing at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick — and Gillian Kingsley — Labor & Delivery nurse at Rochester General Hospital and member of the Rochester Union of Nurses & Allied Professions — joins yours truly in a  frank discussion about safe staffing and nurse retention. 

RUNAP has served management with notice they will soon execute a five-day strike before the month is out. 

Also on the show, we talk about NYC Mayor Eric Adams and his attempt to end the city’s legal obligation to provide shelter to anyone who is homeless and seeking it.  The New York Shelter for All in Need Coalition (NYSANC), an organization that includes union, faith, immigrant rights and social justice groups are taking on Hizzoner. 

In its legal filings, the Adams administration maintains that an influx of undocumented migrants is overwhelming the city’s shelter system that’s gone from housing 45,000 people in April of 2022, to over 116,700 as of the start of this month — a 159 percent increase.

NYSANC members David Jones, president and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York and Maria Castaneda, executive vice president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, make the case that maintaining the right to shelter is essential to protecting public health.

Listen to the entire episode below: