By Steve Wishnia

Michigan has repealed its 2012 law banning the union shop and restored prevailing-wage requirements for public construction projects. But Texas is considering a bill that would void local labor laws that are stronger than the state’s, such as those in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio that employers must give construction workers 10-minute water breaks every four hours.

By Bob Hennelly

This year’s commemoration in lower Manhattan of the Triangle Factory Fire on March 25, 1911, which claimed the lives of 146 mostly young immigrant female garment workers, drew a larger, younger, and more energized crowd than it has in previous years.

By Joe Maniscalco

Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] member Julie Schwartzberg was right on the money a few weeks ago in New York City when she called the ongoing campaign to strip municipal workers of their traditional Medicare health benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program a “national issue.”

On this episode of the “Iron Bill Hohlfeld Show” Bill talks with Clayton Sinyai, executive director of the Catholic Labor Network about “Cathonomics” and what that’s really all about…

Work-Bites

On this episode of the “Iron Bill” Hohlfeld Show, Bill talks with legendary labor activist Frank Emspak about making trouble — the kind of trouble that empowers working class people, overcomes oppressive bosses, and improves working conditions for everyone.

By Steve Wishnia

The Florida legislator who recently introduced a bill to ban the state Democratic Party — on the grounds that it supported slavery before 1865 — is now taking aim at its public-sector unions.

By Joe Maniscalco

The City of New York, like other places around the country, is plowing ahead with its long, laborious campaign to push municipal retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage program. The Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] — the umbrella organization representing public sector unions in the city — is set to present members with a “side-by-side comparison” between what retirees already have and “summary of the proposed contract” on Thursday, March 2.

By Bob Hennelly

On the last Monday of Black History Month, it’s important for the labor movement to reflect on the sad reality that in the half a century since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. America's vast racial wealth divide has endured and, in some regards, gotten worse.

Work-Bites.com

On this inaugural episode of the “Iron Bill” Hohlfeld Show, we jump right in and confront the issue of union member malaise in the post-Covid era economy with Gina Liberti, adjunct professor and president of the Rockland Community College Adjunct Faculty Association in New York.

By Bob Hennelly

While the abused residents of East Palestine, Ohio packed their local high school gym on Wednesday night to sort through the contradictory messaging from officials, freight trains with vast quantities of toxic chemicals rumbled through equally vulnerable and unprepared corridor communities across America. 

By Bob Hennelly

Throughout the recent hazardous chemical freight train derailment in Ohio and the four-day ordeal that followed while the flaming wreck was stabilized, the one perspective that was consistently missing from the reporting was that of the union railroad workers. It didn’t matter if it was the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Associated Press , the reporting relied on interviews with local, state and federal officials as well as statements from the Norfolk Southern, the rail carrier but not the perspective of their union workers.

Special to Work-Bites.com

Being the leader of the pack certainly has its perks. But as the protagonist of Jennifer Bateman Grace’s latest installment of ‘This Is Working’ relates, it can also tear your freakin’ heart out and trample it on the ground — especially around the holidays. But it’s all in a day’s work for the working class. Enjoy!

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part Work-Bites report

If the Supreme Court’s far-right majority wants to rewrite labor law, it can’t simply do it by fiat. Even “if they don’t care about stare decisis,” the general principle is that to overturn an established precedent, they have to establish that it was “egregiously wrongly decided,” explains West Virginia University Law School professor Anne Lofaso, a former National Labor Relations Board attorney.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part report

With six justices on the Supreme Court, the extreme right wing now has a majority to rewrite American labor law substantially — and there is an extensive and well-financed network developing legal arguments and filing lawsuits for it to do just that.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ.com

It’s a tough fact of life but ignoring it won’t change it, whereas, confronting it head on just might. Unions continue to be at a distinct disadvantage in a system where corporations use the legal system and their vast wealth to violate labor law with impunity.

By Joe Maniscalco

The Twitter office cleaners billionaire owner Elon Musk marked for termination in both New York and California last month, are part of a group of essential workers who, just a minute ago, were rightly being lauded as pandemic heroes responsible for helping to keep the economy going while many were too afraid to go outside the house.

By Bob Hennelly

The miraculous rescue of 18 children from an aggressive fire at an illegal daycare center in Queens this week is helping to highlight a national crisis that’s only gotten worse with the closure of 16,000 licensed childcare centers across the country.

By Joe Maniscalco

Despite the roughly $340 million employers spend each year to crush their unionization efforts, American workers are filing more union petitions than they have at any time since 2016, and they’re winning more than 70 percent of workplace elections. So, how come most still don’t have a signed union contract after more than a year of trying?

BY RILEY JAMES

When my daughter was in second grade, she appeared in a school play as a member of the White House Press Corps. She could have tried out for the role of president, or vice president, or Secret Service agent, but she knew the role she wanted, because she wanted to be a journalist just like me, and she got it.

By Timothy Sheard

Editor’s Note: Tim Sheard is the founder of Work-Bites’ publishing partner Hard Ball and Little Heroes Press. We’re happy to share this little vignette of old-time New York City with you. Have a great work week!

My dad was a New York City newspaper reporter in the 1940's and 50's. On most mornings, he and his fellow reporters would clock in at work, and then go to the pub to start drinking.