By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we look at Laborers Local 78 & 79’s demand on a developer to end its relationship with a troubled non-union demolition contractor.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Protocols” and “Processes.”

Having already reported on the “protocol” within the New York City Council that gives one person—the Speaker—sole power to determine what the rest of the 50 other members get to vote on, we couldn’t help but also take note recently of another colossally-undemocratic and grossly authoritarian “process” governing the lives of everyday working class people in this town.

By Steve Wishnia

If Project 2025—the blueprint for a second Donald Trump administration drawn up by the Heritage Foundation think tank—gets the green light, people signing up for Medicare would be automatically put into a profit-driven “Medicare Advantage” health insurance plan unless they made a special effort to sign up for regular, non-privatized Medicare coverage.

By Bob Hennelly

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour’s Health Care Fridays with Julianna Forlano & Marianne Pizzitola. If it’s Friday on WBAI Pacifica Radio—we are talking healthcare because it’s the number one labor issue in America.

By Joe Maniscalco

Forget what New York City Mayor Eric Adams told municipal retirees in the Bronx opposing the Medicare Advantage push earlier this week—a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan is, indeed, part of his administration’s “comprehensive approach” to remaking retiree health care before he leaves office. 

By Harry Weiner

Dear Brad -

As a retiree from City Service (31 years with NYCHA)  and a member of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, I feel that your announcement to seek the mayoralty brings hope to our three year struggle to preserve our health insurance benefits.

By Joe Maniscalco

Four years ago, the police crackdown on New York City demonstrators protesting the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota was so bad, some people of color making their way home from late night jobs in the building service industry openly feared having problematic run-ins with cops.

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.