By Joe Maniscalco

Members of a mostly Republican caucus inside the New York City Council filed an amicus brief today in New York State Supreme Court supporting municipal retirees seeking a preliminary injunction against Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to strip city workers of their traditional Medicare coverage and force them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

As we celebrate Juneteenth this week, we should reflect on the reality that the abomination of slavery is not entirely in our collective rear view mirror.

It endures.

By Bob Hennelly

On this Juneteenth Edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour we’re broadcasting from Washington DC at the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Poverty Action Congress. NYC Council Member Charles Barron is on hand to talk about new legislation being introduced this week to safeguard traditional Medicare benefits for municipal retirees, and much more.

By Joe Maniscalco

There’s a lot for a labor writer who’s covered the trade union movement for more than a decade to think about on Juneteenth. But this year, the thing I keep coming back to is how the single most important truism working people can understand right now might go back to something Maya Angelou talked about while taping a 1997 Oprah Winfrey television special in her pajamas.

By Bob Hennelly

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and a coalition of 11 unions representing more than 32,000 uniformed officers have reached a tentative contract deal that raises pay 3.25 percent in the first two years, 3.50 percent in the third and fourth year, with a 4 percent bump in the fifth and final year.

By Joe Maniscalco

Aetna is one the largest private health insurance companies in the United States today, in the top 10, in fact. And this week, we learned the company is alleging to have handled 82 million Medicare Advantage claims last year alone — and out of that vast number, they say, “only” 3.4% were subjected to prior approval, with a mere 0.49% ultimately being denied. Whoa!

By Bob Hennelly

UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s working with Mayor Adams to push New York City’s 250,000 retired municipal employees into a controversial for-profit Medicare Advantage health insurance plan appears to be paying dividends for his union’s active members under terms of a tentative contract announced June 13 at City Hall.

By Bob Hennelly

In the middle part of the show, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander explains why he opted to reject the Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan that Mayor Adams is forcing 250,000 New York City retired civil servants to enroll in. Lander explains how pending litigation by the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees raises significant questions about the legality of the procurement.

By Joe Maniscalco

Is there a possibility — now that Comptroller Brad Lander has declined to register the city’s Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna — New York City Mayor Eric Adams will reconsider his plan to strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage? 

By Bob Hennelly

 Hemispheric Wildfire Plume Puts Millions of Workers at Risk

This past week, officials appeared to be caught very much by surprise by the toxic plume which left New York City’s air the unhealthiest on the planet. The Canadian wildfires that were the source of the major public health threat had been making headlines north of the border for weeks but were not on the radar of local emergency managers until the plume was upon them.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander isn’t gonna help Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Canada is on fire.

The smog fallout downwind has set off air quality alerts for 13 states south of the border with the worst air quality currently being reported in upstate New York from Syracuse to Binghamton. Toxic smog has extended down along the East Coast and into the Ohio Valley as millions of Americans are being advised to curtail outdoor activity if they have pre-existing health conditions.

By Joe Maniscalco

Former profit-driven health insurance industry insider turned profit-driven health insurance industry foil Wendell Potter thinks it’s possible to “at least begin to slow” the privatization of traditional Medicare, but that we need Democrats running both houses of Congress and the White House.

By Bob Hennelly

Last month marked the 21st anniversary of the end of the official clean-up in lower Manhattan of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and the fires that persisted for months after the collapse of the Twin Towers. In the years since, more people have died from their exposure to the toxic air than the close to 3,000 that perished the day of the attack.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is Part II of special two-part Work-Bites series on New York State’s nursing home crisis. Part I is here. 

If the owners of for-profit nursing homes are shuffling money around multiple related companies to conceal income and increase profits, what can be done about it?

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we are joined by Pete Kramer, veteran reporter with the Journal News and member of the News Guild CWA New York State team to discuss today’s one-day strike against Gannett called at two dozen newspapers in several states…

By Bob Hennelly

Editor’s Note: This story has been revised from a previously published version.

The tentative contract deal reached earlier this week between TWU Local 100 and the MTA provides for “solid annual raises of 9.8 percent compounded over three years-and $4,000 in Essential Worker Cash Bonus payments-that are substantially better than the city pattern,” according to the union’s press release announcing the deal. 

By Joe Maniscalco

Nancy Losinno still remembers her husband Joseph returning home in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 absolutely devastated by all the death and suffering he experienced as a faithful member of the FDNY. New Yorkers back then were constantly being exhorted to “Never Forget.” Nancy never needed to be told.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a special two-part Work-Bites series on New York State’s nursing home crisis.

A growing business model among nursing-home owners is connected to worse care, worse conditions, and worse pay for workers — and its structure makes it much harder to regulate.

By Bob Hennelly

On this Memorial Day episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re talking about the courage and sacrifices working people are making throughout this county. First up is a conversation with Debbie White, Registered Nurse and head of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) — the largest healthcare union in New Jersey about the ongoing fight for safe staffing laws in the Garden State.