By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour FDNY firefighter Regina Wilson — president of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal organization that represents Black firefighters, EMS, fire inspectors and civilian employees — discusses what’s been accomplished and what’s left to do after the City of New York’s 2014 settlement of a federal racial discrimination lawsuit.

By Bob Hennelly

Speculation in the New York Post that former Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney were both angling to succeed outgoing U.S. Secretary Marty Walsh was received with a mix of laughter and outright disdain during an informal survey of several New York City union leaders.

By Steve Wishnia

State Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens) and Assemblymember Latoya Joyner (D-Bronx), the chairs of the labor committees in their houses of the Legislature, have introduced a bill to require employers to take measures to protect their workers against extreme heat and cold.

Work-Bites.com

Husband, father, author, educator, Ironworker - Bill Hohlfeld has been all of these things and more in his life. Now, he continues his trade union activism as host of his own podcast for Work-Bites.com.

By Bob Hennelly

Throughout the recent hazardous chemical freight train derailment in Ohio and the four-day ordeal that followed while the flaming wreck was stabilized, the one perspective that was consistently missing from the reporting was that of the union railroad workers. It didn’t matter if it was the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Associated Press , the reporting relied on interviews with local, state and federal officials as well as statements from the Norfolk Southern, the rail carrier but not the perspective of their union workers.

Special to Work-Bites.com

Being the leader of the pack certainly has its perks. But as the protagonist of Jennifer Bateman Grace’s latest installment of ‘This Is Working’ relates, it can also tear your freakin’ heart out and trample it on the ground — especially around the holidays. But it’s all in a day’s work for the working class. Enjoy!

By Bob Hennelly

Here are the full show notes for this week’s edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour:

By Steve Wishnia

SALAMANCA, N.Y.— Sandra Lamacchia, a licensed practical nurse at a nursing home in Salamanca, about 60 miles south of Buffalo, says she wishes her employer would hire temporary laundry workers.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, when he announced his support of a plan to push municipal retirees into a privatized Medicare Advantage program last year, said “the city has had, and will continue to have, your best interests at heart.” 

Why then does convening a Blue Ribbon Panel where those interests would be directly represented by retirees themselves appear to be the last thing Hizzoner wants to talk about?

By Bob Hennelly

The deadline for the City Council to change its Administrative code that covers how the city provides healthcare insurance for its active-duty workforce and retirees came and went last month without the Council opting to act after a marathon Jan. 9 public hearing where scores of city retirees blasted the proposal.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part Work-Bites report

If the Supreme Court’s far-right majority wants to rewrite labor law, it can’t simply do it by fiat. Even “if they don’t care about stare decisis,” the general principle is that to overturn an established precedent, they have to establish that it was “egregiously wrongly decided,” explains West Virginia University Law School professor Anne Lofaso, a former National Labor Relations Board attorney.

By Bob Hennelly

Here’s a quick look at this week’s Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour - listen to the entire show below!

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part report

With six justices on the Supreme Court, the extreme right wing now has a majority to rewrite American labor law substantially — and there is an extensive and well-financed network developing legal arguments and filing lawsuits for it to do just that.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ.com

It’s a tough fact of life but ignoring it won’t change it, whereas, confronting it head on just might. Unions continue to be at a distinct disadvantage in a system where corporations use the legal system and their vast wealth to violate labor law with impunity.

By Joe Maniscalco

The Twitter office cleaners billionaire owner Elon Musk marked for termination in both New York and California last month, are part of a group of essential workers who, just a minute ago, were rightly being lauded as pandemic heroes responsible for helping to keep the economy going while many were too afraid to go outside the house.

By Bob Hennelly

The miraculous rescue of 18 children from an aggressive fire at an illegal daycare center in Queens this week is helping to highlight a national crisis that’s only gotten worse with the closure of 16,000 licensed childcare centers across the country.

By Joe Maniscalco

Despite the roughly $340 million employers spend each year to crush their unionization efforts, American workers are filing more union petitions than they have at any time since 2016, and they’re winning more than 70 percent of workplace elections. So, how come most still don’t have a signed union contract after more than a year of trying?

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Radio Labor Hour we explore the continuum of COVID and the occupational health implications for America’s essential workforce with Dr. Gounder, senior fellow and editor-at-large for Public Health at Kaiser Health News. Topics include the lack of an accounting for the work exposure related deaths of essential workers during the pandemic and the longterm challenges of long COVID as potentially disabling.

By Joe Maniscalco

Their chief antagonists may happen to be some of the most influential union leaders in New York City — but municipal retirees refusing to be stripped of their traditional Medicare health insurance and pushed into a scandalous for-profit Medicare Advantage program are exercising as much labor power as any Amazon warehouse worker or Starbucks barista — and that’s how they ought to be celebrated this week.

By Bob Hennelly

The City Council will not advance a controversial bill being pushed hard by Mayor Adams and the Municipal Labor Committee to change the city’s Administrative Code 12-126 that covers how the city covers its 300,000 active-duty employees and 250,000 retirees.