By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Council — celebrated for being the most progressive in NYC history — is reportedly still searching for “clarity” on the campaign to push municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit Medicare Advantage health plan. Retired Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson has some.

“Your medical care can really go off the rails,” Peterson recently told Work-Bites.

By Bob Hennelly

Even as the nation finds itself in a tridemic, with COVID, the flu and pediatric respiratory viruses all surging, the nation is facing a critical shortfall of hundreds of thousands of nurses. In Part 1, I talk with New York State Nurses AssociationPresident Nancy Hagans, RN.

By Bob Hennelly

In the first direct vote ever by the rank-and-file of the United Auto Workers, members voted by a nearly two-to-one margin for someone other than Ray Curry, the incumbent president. But thanks to the crowded field no one candidate emerged with the 50 percent threshold necessary to avoid a run-off early next year.

By Joe Maniscalco

Sometimes, jobs can get so bad they kill. Ivan Frias, went to work last Monday November 28, and never came home again after plunging off the 15th Floor of a 23-story building located at West 72nd Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Tuesday of next week will be the last public hearing being held by New Jersey’s Coronavirus Disease Pandemic Task Force on Racial and Health Disparities where people can offer their first-hand account of their COVID tribulation that at last count killed over 35,110 New Jersey residents and 1.1 million Americans nationally.

By Joe Maniscalco with Dana Jacks

From New York City adjunct professors striking for a living wage to US railroad workers fighting for the right to call in sick — working class people across the country are increasingly feeling the power of collective action.

By Bob Hennelly

The House of Representatives voted Nov. 30 to impose a tentative pact reached between the nation’s freight railroads and labor leaders back in September. The deal was subsequently rejected by the rank and file of four of the industry’s larger unions but approved by several others. The 290 to 137 bipartisan House vote came after President Biden requested Congressional intervention to head off “a potentially crippling national rail shutdown” on Dec. 9.

By Steve Wishnia

A group of retired city workers is asking state courts to stop the $15 copayment for medical treatment the city and its health-insurance companies began charging in January.

By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco

Despite two consecutive losses in court and ample evidence that Medicare Advantage is a bad deal for seniors — the City of New York continues to push it’s municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit health insurance plan.

The Adams administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee insist healthcare costs are bleeding the city dry.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee have been unable to take away traditional Medicare from the municipal workers who’ve earned it because retirees keep beating them in court — and on the streets.

By Bob Hennelly

A state appeals court has upheld a lower-court ruling the Adams administration can’t switch retired workers from Medicare to a private Medicare Advantage plan and force those who want to keep their traditional Medicare to pay more has added more pressure on the City Council to weigh in on the controversy while increasing the leverage of the the retired civil servants who successfully sued the city to stop the move.

By Steve Wishnia

A state appeals court on Nov. 22 unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling that the city administration can’t legally switch retired workers from traditional Medicare to a private Medicare Advantage plan, and can’t force those who want to keep Medicare to pay more.

By Joe Maniscalco

Organizing working class power against entrenched systems of economic exploitation and oppression can take a lot out of you. But Standing Up: Tales of Struggle authors Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller also want you to know that it can fill you with something, too — love.

By Steve Wishnia

“Are you guys striking?” a young woman in a wool cap and ponytail asks a barista handing out flyers in front of a Starbucks in Queens, November 17.

Yes, says barista Faith Bianchi, giving her a short overview about the workers seeking benefits. “I was going to get some lattes, but I won’t,” the woman answers. A man standing nearby holds a “No Contract, No Coffee” sign, its red and green colors matching the holiday cups Starbucks is giving away.

By Joe Maniscalco

Is there a more consequential issue facing the folks in city government today than the plan backed by the mayor and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee to push New York City’s retirees into a for-profit private health insurance plan calling itself “Medicare Advantage?”

By Bob Hennelly

With just 24 hours to go before the deadline for ballots to be postmarked for the election of the United Auto Workers leadership by the rank and file — one of the candidates for the top post wants a federal court to extend the process for another 30 days due to “widespread reports that workers are unaware of the election” and incumbent union officials have failed to get the word out to the members.

By Joe Maniscalco

Colleges and universities have for years employed an economic system that’s allowed them to get the most talented and dedicated academics this country has to offer on the cheap — but students at The New School School and Parsons School of Design in New York City are calling bullshit on the whole operation.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

In response to an unprecedented spike in healthcare insurance premium hikes for essential workers, some of the Garden State’s largest unions, healthcare advocates and social justice nonprofits are forming the New Jersey Coalition for Affordable Hospitals (NJCAH) to press for more transparency on the runaway healthcare pricing. 

By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco

ACT-UAW Local 7902 teachers at the New School and Parsons School of Design have overwhelmingly authorized to go on strike — and unsurprisingly, stagnant wages and astronomical healthcare costs are central issues surrounding the looming job action.

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, Parsons teacher and union representative Tamar Samir tells host Bob Hennelly “We need universal healthcare and unions need to be advocating and fighting for it.”

By Joe Maniscalco

Starbucks worker Joel Foote already had seven write-ups hanging over his head when Work-Bites talked to him outside the company’s Reserve Roastery in Chelsea this past Thursday. One more and he would be fired. “Fear is a tool of the boss,” the 24-year-old said. “The power lies within our labor — and once we understand that we don’t need to be afraid.”