By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we welcome WBAI Interim Program Director Keziah Glow to the host’s chair to discuss the deadly police shooting of 36-year-old mother of two Sonya Massey inside her Woodside Township home near Springfield, Illinois on July 6.

By Bob Hennelly

This week’s edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour comes to you as outrage continues to grow over the fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black 36 year-old mother of two who was unarmed, but fatally shot in the face by a Sangamon County deputy sheriff in her home in Springfield, Illinois on July 6.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees still looking for a champion inside the City Council to reintroduce a bill protecting their existing Medicare health insurance benefits from the onslaught of so-called Medicare Advantage and privatization are gonna have to keep on searching.

By Joe Maniscalco

Roughly the same number of American voters who helped Joe Biden best Donald Trump in 2020 decided not to vote at all in that same election. That’s a lot of people—about 81 million, in fact—some of whom could, nevertheless, now be moved to help prevent King Donald I from returning to the throne in November. But that’s only if the Democratic National Committee actually gave them reason enough to get out and vote this time out. 

Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a special two-part Work-Bites report on the increasing dangers across the nation’s freight rail system and the growing calls for public ownership of those lines.

By Steve Wishnia

The “Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System” report released earlier this month lays out several arguments for public ownership of freight railroads.

By Bob Hennelly

President Biden ended weeks of speculation and announced that he would not stand for re-election and would instead endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris for his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention scheduled in Chicago later next month.

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

By Bob Hennelly

I started writing this at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport waiting to catch a long delayed flight back to Newark having spent the full week covering the Republican National Convention. I am stationed on the floor near an electrical outlet to recharge my phone.

Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a special two-part Work-Bites report on the increasing dangers across the nation’s freight rail system and the growing calls for public ownership of those lines.

By Steve Wishnia

Corporate ownership has messed up freight rail in the U.S. and Canada so badly that public ownership is the only way to save it, argues a study released this summer

By Joe Maniscalco

Earlier this month, New York City physicians working under an expired contract since last summer showed up on Mayor Eric Adams’ Gracie Mansion doorstep to remind Hizzoner that there is a retention and recruitment crisis going on inside the municipal NYC Health + Hospitals system and that he really needs to get off the pot and sign a new pact with them before things get much worse.

By Phil Cohen

On the evening of January 4, I met with the committee and proposed a more dramatic return to Sam’s Club that would garner headlines rather than brief mentions by the press. Playing it safe doesn’t generate three-minute spots on the evening news.

By Joe Maniscalco

The 70th anniversary rerelease of Akira Kurosawa’s classic “Seven Samurai” in newly restored 4K opens on the supine occupants of a 16th century village in civil war-torn Japan literally groveling in the mud as a mounted band of homicidal bandits assembled on a high ridge hungrily surveys the scene below.

By Phil Cohen

I distributed a leaflet scheduling a union meeting for November 11, at 5:30pm.  Beneath the headline it read:

“Despite Starlite’s games, lies, and efforts to confuse workers, the union remains!  Starlite is making the same mistake as every sleazy union busting company. They are underestimating their workers. They underestimate our common sense. They underestimate our courage. They underestimate our determination.”

By Joe Maniscalco

UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s recent decision to pull out of the campaign to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan represents a “golden opportunity” for Speaker Adrienne Adams to “reignite” the conversation about retiree healthcare, Council Member Shahana Hanif [D-39th District] told Work-Bites this past weekend.

By Phil Cohen

Serta doesn’t manufacture mattresses. They sell their brand name and designs to licensees who produce their products and market directly to retailers.

On May 8, 1998, workers at Starlite Bedding, a licensee in Greensboro, North Carolina voted to join UNITE (formerly ACTWU and now Workers United.)  A bargaining committee was elected and UNITE’s Southern Regional Director Harris Raynor initiated contract negotiations with a company attorney in what promised to be an amicable and productive process.

By Ryn Gargulinski

Being burdened with a 24-hour workday is a surefire way to end up burnt-out, groggy and cranky as hell. But alas, the situation exists. It’s long been the case with New York City home care workers (who, outrageously, only get paid for 13 of those hours). And you can still find even lengthier shifts in the medical world. Nothing like a burnt-out, groggy and cranky-as-hell doctor-in-training being assigned to your hospital bedside, right?

By Bob Hennelly

The Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour is in Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention where Donald Trump has picked Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a key labor state, as his vice-presidential pick.

By Steve Wishnia

The Heritage Foundation has a plan for Donald Trump’s “deep state.” As he has minimal command of policy issues and details, he relies on the far-right think tank to come up with specific proposals. They know what “concerted activity” is and have ideas about how to weaken Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

By Bob Hennelly

Dozens of attending physicians with Doctors Council SEIU made the trip up to Gracie Mansion this week to deliver a petition signed by over 1,000 of their colleagues to Mayor Eric Adams, warning that a lapsed contract is undermining recruitment and retention of staff.

Editor’s Note: John Hsu is a former congressional candidate from New Jersey’s 6th District

By John Hsu

Since April 22, over 100 workers from Silgan Containers, makers of steel cans for food products such as soup and dog food, have been on strike at the company’s 135 National Road location in Edison, N.J. after failing to come to terms on a new contract. The workers are unionized with United Steel Workers (USW) local 6129.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees and home care workers heroically fighting for what they’ve already earned know the deck has been heavily stacked against them—so, why aren’t some of their staunchest allies willing to do anything about the systemic conditions underpinning that institutionalized inequity?