Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is lifelong New Yorker who devoted more than 30 years of his life working for the New York City Housing Authority. As as an IBT Local 237 member, Harry feels his union betrayed him when it voted in favor of stripping NYC municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and pushing them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan with Aetna.

This is his open letter to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander urging him to investigate the Municipal Labor Committee’s Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired New York City librarian Dana Simon was in an Aetna managed care plan back in 2007 when the night before she was scheduled to have her cochlear implant replaced — she received a call from the for-profit health insurance company warning her to cancel the surgery because they weren’t covering the operation.

By Bob Hennelly

On this edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour we mark week 2 of Women’s History Month we welcome Dalvanie Powell, president of the NYC United Probation Officers Association; Bev Neufeld, the co-founder of PowHer NY, a non-profit advocacy pressing for gender pay equity; and Celeste Kirkland, vice-chair of TWU Local 100’s Power Division and vice-president of the NYC chapter of the Coalition of Union Women.

Work-Bites

On this episode of the “Iron Bill” Hohlfeld Show, Bill talks with legendary labor activist Frank Emspak about making trouble — the kind of trouble that empowers working class people, overcomes oppressive bosses, and improves working conditions for everyone.

By Joe Maniscalco

The Municipal Labor Committee’s [MLC] ability to legitimately represent public service unions across New York City is openly being called into question this week following Thursday’s weighted vote helping Mayor Eric Adams’ administration strip civil service workers of their traditional Medicare health benefits and push them into profit-driven Medicare Advantage program run by insurance giant Aetna.

By Steve Wishnia

The Florida legislator who recently introduced a bill to ban the state Democratic Party — on the grounds that it supported slavery before 1865 — is now taking aim at its public-sector unions.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] may be poised on Thursday to endorse an agreement with Aetna to privatize health care for hundreds of thousands of city employees — but it’s hard for Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains’ Association, to comprehend why any union would be endorsing a profit-driven scheme like Medicare Advantage.

By Bob Hennelly

This is the first Monday of Women’s History Month. Last Women’s History Month, a woman still had the reproductive rights that were enshrined in the landmark Roe. Vs Wade decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. On June 24, 2022 the US Supreme Court took that away.

Work-Bites.com

On this episode of the “Iron Bill” Hohlfeld Show, Bill talks to retired locomotive engineer and Railroad Workers United [RWU] member Mark Burrows about the unfolding train derailment disaster in East Palestine, Ohio — and why members of the RWU say it is time for public ownership of the nation’s railway system.

By Joe Maniscalco

To no one’s surprise, but to the absolute horror of many — Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] have gone ahead and thrown back the blast doors on the nukes pointed at traditional Medicare health insurance in New York City and started the countdown to launch.

By Bob Hennelly

It came as no surprise to Maurice Walls, a proud TWU Local 100 elevator mechanic, that a recent City Council analysis found the MTA and its union workforce did a much better job keeping its escalator and elevators operating than the contractors doing that work for sites where real estate developers are responsible for their operation.

By Steve Wishnia

Better pay and job security, especially for adjunct and lower-paid full-time staff, are among the main priorities for the Professional Staff Congress as it prepares to negotiate a new contract with the City University of New York.

By Joe Maniscalco

The City of New York, like other places around the country, is plowing ahead with its long, laborious campaign to push municipal retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage program. The Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] — the umbrella organization representing public sector unions in the city — is set to present members with a “side-by-side comparison” between what retirees already have and “summary of the proposed contract” on Thursday, March 2.

By Bob Hennelly

On the last Monday of Black History Month, it’s important for the labor movement to reflect on the sad reality that in the half a century since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. America's vast racial wealth divide has endured and, in some regards, gotten worse.

Work-Bites.com

On this inaugural episode of the “Iron Bill” Hohlfeld Show, we jump right in and confront the issue of union member malaise in the post-Covid era economy with Gina Liberti, adjunct professor and president of the Rockland Community College Adjunct Faculty Association in New York.

By Bob Hennelly

A New York City Council bill that aims to bring transparency and accountability to NYC’s opaque hospital pricing via a consumer-friendly website is a step closer to consideration by the full body after a Feb. 23 hearing.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we get an update from Doctors Council SEIU President Dr. Frank Proscia and Allina Mercy Hospital physician Dr. Amber Galarowicz about the campaign to organize physicians in the state of Minnesota.

In the second half of the show, we hear about two recent labor wins here in New York and New England…

By Steve Wishnia 

The city has reached a tentative contract deal with District Council 37, the union representing more than a quarter of the municipal workforce, Mayor Eric Adams announced Feb. 17.

By Bob Hennelly

While the abused residents of East Palestine, Ohio packed their local high school gym on Wednesday night to sort through the contradictory messaging from officials, freight trains with vast quantities of toxic chemicals rumbled through equally vulnerable and unprepared corridor communities across America. 

By Joe Maniscalco

The prospect of Bill de Blasio succeeding Marty Walsh as U.S. Labor Secretary immediately sparked incredulous feelings of horror and hilarity amongst working class New Yorkers who know the former mayor’s record best.