By Bob Hennelly

New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s awarding of a $432 million dollar no-bid contract to handle the city’s influx of undocumented migrants last spring to DocGo, a for-profit medical services company, is just the latest example of municipal government outsourcing its response to a crisis — even as it cuts or leaves vacant tens thousands of civil service jobs.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we revisit the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 strike against the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ as it enters its third week. The union is pressing its demands for an accountability mechanism for staff to patient ratios. Local 4-200 Union President Judy Danella and Debbie White, RN, president HPAE, New Jersey largest nurses’ union, talk about legislation pending in Trenton which would create a state standard for nurse staffing that would put patients ahead of hospital profits.

By Steve Wishnia

Almost 3,000 occupational and physical therapists [OT/PT] in New York City public schools are in the process of revoting on a contract they rejected by a 2–1 margin last month.

By Joe Maniscalco

Despite some very strange efforts to obscure the fact, Medicare remains one of organized labor’s all-time greatest achievements 58 years after President Lyndon Baines Johnson first signed it into existence with Harry and Bess Truman proudly standing by.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

As the nurses’ strike at New Brunswick’s Robert Wood Johnson University entered its second week, sources say the major sticking point is what sort of enforcement mechanism can be relied on to ensure the hospital maintains whatever levels of staffing that it commits to.

Work-Bites Network

This past Friday, New York State Supreme Court Judge Lyle E. Frank issued a decision permanently prohibiting New York City Mayor Eric Adams from forcing 250,000 retired municipal workers, most of them former union members, out of traditional Medicare and into a profit-driven Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Yaaaay!”

New York City retiree Roberta Gonzalez reacted with total glee today after learning municipal workers fighting to retain their traditional Medicare health insurance coverage have won yet another big victory in court.

By Bob Hennelly

It is said that history is written by the winners. But when it comes to big wins by organized labor, the corporate news media, itself fighting unionization at all costs, tends to ignore unions even when they are shaping history.

Work-Bites Network

On the latest episode of the Iron Bill Hohlfeld Show, we welcome Mike Dunn, President, BA, Apprentice Coordinator, Ironworkers Local 417, to share his views on surviving — and thriving the dramatic changes hitting the construction industry.

By Robert Ovetz

Open bargaining is becoming more widespread as more unions like one of my own adopt it. As it does, we should not take for granted that conservative leadership is willingly going to allow the rank and file to obtain more power at the bargaining table. Open bargaining, which allows the rank-and-file to participate in bargaining sessions,  is a threat to both conservative leadership and the boss.  

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

A few days into the nurses’ strike at New Brunswick’s Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and the outpouring of community support expressed for the nurses in the cacophony of car and truck horns echoes for blocks away.

By Bob Hennelly

On the latest episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, Judy Danella, RN, and president of United Steel Workers Nurses Local 4-200, updates us on her union’s strike at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. New York State Nurses Association [NYSNA] President Nancy Hagans is also on hand to discuss her union’s new contract agreement with New York City’s Health + Hospitals Corporation, which promises a $32,000 a year pay boost over the next five-and-a-half years.

By Joe Maniscalco

Brooklyn comic book creator Dean Haspiel is sort of like a construction worker — both really enjoy the inherent tangibility of the work — whether it’s pointing to a building on the corner they helped put up, or grabbing a graphic novel off the shelf they helped produce.

By Bob Hennelly

New York City’s 250,000 municipal retirees recently got a form letter from the Office of Labor Relations announcing Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is no longer abiding by its September 1 deadline for the implementation of its Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan, which the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR] has been successfully fighting in court.

By Steve Wishnia

Nurses at New York City public hospitals and other city-run health facilities have won a contract that will immediately raise their salaries by more than $16,000, the New York State Nurses Association announced July 31.

By Bob Hennelly

On the latest episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we recap last week’s Washington, D.C. rally to save traditional Medicare with Marianne Pizzitola, president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees.

By Steve Wishnia

In February 2022, President Joseph Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop minimum staffing standards for nursing homes, to remedy the most chronic problem workers and patient advocates have with the quality of care. The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not yet released its proposed regulations, which were expected this spring — but the nursing-home industry is already opposing them.

Work-Bites Network

On this episode of Labor This Week with host Mark Harrison, we travel to the nation’s capital with New York City municipal retirees fighting to strengthen traditional Medicare nationwide, while struggling to fend off Mayor Eric Adams’ privatization efforts here at home.

By Joe Maniscalco

Ninety-year-old New York City municipal retiree Evie Jones Rich stood on the pavement outside the Manhattan offices of U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in 90-plus degree heat on Friday afternoon, and spoke for nearly six minutes straight about the need to save Medicare from increasing privatization.

By Bob Hennelly

The New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR] were given a hero’s welcome at a ‘save Medicare’ rally in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 27. Roughly 70 members shared the spotlight with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and several other members of the House of Representatives who blasted for-profit Medicare Advantage insurance companies for delaying and denying health care treatment to seniors which they said resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths a year.