By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we visit with New York City Central Labor Council President Vinnie Alvarez about the significance of last week’s big win for the International Longshoremen’s Association [ILA]. The union’s 3-day strike earned workers a 62 percent wage hike. 

By Steve Wishnia

More than 2,500 workers at a Brooklyn-based home health-care agency, along with another 880 at a medical lab in Nassau County, have added themselves to the ranks of 1199SEIU.

By Ryn Gargulinski

If you start having nightmares about your job, it’s time to get a new job. That’s one of the self-imposed rules I created some 25 years ago when one of my bosses showed up as Satan in a hallucination while I was going through the DTs.

By Joe Maniscalco

This week, New York City municipal retirees donned chilling death shrouds and held a mass “die-in” in front of Aetna’s Manhattan offices at One Soho Square to dramatize their opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing Medicare Advantage push—and the need to finally pass the New York Health Act.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been hit with a 57-page, 5-count federal indictment, been called unfit to serve, and urged to resign—but he’s still determined to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven health insurance plan experts and the courts say diminishes existing Medicare benefits.

By Bob Hennelly

Over the weekend, indicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams continued to express his intention to remain in office as he fights multiple corruption charges that could get him 45 years in prison. In this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we speak with New York City Comptroller Brad Lander about his take on this unprecedented crisis in city governance. 

By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: This is Part III of Phil’s three-part sequel to his previous Work-Bites series centering on his dangerous days scratching out a living as a New York City cabbie. Read Parts I and II.

I met with Morris and Herb on the morning of my first official day as manager. They handed me two keys; one for the desk compartment containing the books and rent money, and the other for the basement which I had to inspect on a weekly basis to see if the boiler or plumbing needed servicing.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

This past week, our region and the great world beyond woke up to reports of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams on what turned out to be corruption charges. This unprecedented development comes amidst the climax of the most consequential presidential election since 1864 when our nation was caught up in the Civil War.

By Joe Maniscalco

“UFT, DC37 have to stop f——-g with our healthcare…stop selling out our retirees…stop f——-g over actives.”

A couple of weeks ago, a group New York City municipal retirees fighting the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to strip them of their existing Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” plan took to the streets of Manhattan to denounce the scheme and to advocate passage of the New York Health Act.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we talk to DC 37 Local 3621 FDNY EMS President Vinnie Variale about a really alarming increase in EMS response times for medical emergencies that are now averaging over ten minutes. Only one in five heart attack victims is actually surviving—the worst survival rate in more than ten years. 

By Bob Hennelly

Another weekend, another Adams administration bombshell served up late on Saturday night with an NYPD tweet from interim police commissioner Thomas Donlon that “federal authorities executed search warrants” at his residences and that they “took materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and are unrelated to my work with the New York City Police Department.”

By Rebecca Wishnia

On Sept. 19, I was to review the opening-night performance of the Verdi Requiem at the San Francisco Symphony. The downbeat never came: The performance was canceled due to a strike by the chorus singers—members of the American Guild of Musical Artists. I went to the picket lines.

By Joe Maniscalco

After helping to spearhead the ongoing campaign to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan, UFT President Michael Mulgrew now says the union is “firmly against a Medicare Advantage plan for our retirees.”

By Steve Wishnia

“We will not stand for racism, bias, and discrimination,” Brooklyn Assemblymember Stefanie Zinerman told about 100 health-care workers on the sidewalk outside Interfaith Medical Center September 18. “We love pets. We do not eat pets!”

By Phil Cohen

Part II – Still Desperate for Work

I resumed aggressively searching help wanted sections in newspapers for an employer not likely to require background checks, and finally found an ad for a job soliciting magazine subscriptions by phone, located on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. I called and was told to report for work that afternoon at 4 p.m.

By Bob Hennelly

While labor is our focus on the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we do have to keep an eye on City Hall in NYC which is in the midst of labor negotiations with both the Doctors Council SEIU and the FDNY EMS unions.

By Joe Maniscalco

UFT President Michael Mulgrew may have officially backed out on the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” health insurance they do not want—he still insists it doesn’t pose the threat opponents say it does.

By Bob Hennelly

Chants of “What do we want? A fair contract! When do we want it? Now!” boomed throughout the concrete canyons around 230 Park Ave. in mid-town  this week as  250 members of Law360’s unionized staff  hit the bricks in an unfair labor practice strike against their highly profitable employer.

By Steve Wishnia

With the Teamsters the only large U.S. union that has not endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, many members are seething at General President Sean O’Brien for speaking at the Republican national convention in July.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

This Labor Day workers who hoped the state’s court system would end Trenton’s exemption for Atlantic City’s casinos from the state’s 2006 Smoke-Free Air Act that entitles workers to work in a smoke free environment were dealt a real disappointment by a judge who sided with the casino industry to keep the oppressively toxic exemption in place.