By Bob Hennelly

Striking nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey have voted overwhelmingly to continue their job action even after the self-insured nonprofit hospital chain cut off their healthcare.

By Joe Maniscalco

Something ugly and very troubling recently happened on the picket line outside the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey that should tell us a lot about the ongoing strike at that particular institution.

But more importantly, it should also serve as a sobering warning about the class struggle working people throughout this country now face — and have, indeed, always faced when they collectively stand up to the bosses. 

By Timothy Sheard

Dear nursing sisters and brothers,

You have to be tender and tough if you are going to stay in the nursing profession for very long. Tender, because our patients are so vulnerable. So at risk of injury and death. So afraid.

And tough, because the work is so demanding, the bosses so disrespectful, and the pain of losing a patient so deep.

By Bob Hennelly

A month-and-a-half into the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 strike for safer staffing at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey and a settlement continues to be elusive as the rhetoric is heating up on both sides.

Video follows story…

By Joe Maniscalco

This weekend’s New York City Labor Day Parade saw municipal retirees fighting to retain their Medicare coverage tangle with the heads of both the state AFL-CIO and NYC Central Labor Council over the duo’s opposition to Intro. 1099 — the City Council bill aimed at shielding traditional health insurance from Medicare Advantage and privatization.   

By Joe Maniscalco

A letter sent to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and signed by 35 retired union leaders — largely from the uniformed services — is calling further BS on claims that pending legislation aimed at protecting municipal retiree healthcare from privatization would somehow impinge on collective bargaining rights.

By Bob Hennelly 

As hundreds of thousands of students returned to school in New York State and New York City this week, Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters the state’s teachers still face major challenges as a consequence of the COVID mass death event that killed 1.1 million people including over 77,000 in New York.

By Bob Hennelly

New York State employers will no longer be able to force employees to attend so-called “captive meetings,” which corporations like Starbucks and Amazon use to undermine union organizing.   

Who Do You Trust More? 

By Bob Hennelly

By Friday, all of the striking nurses at New Brunswick, New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital will lose their employer healthcare coverage. No new talks are scheduled.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired NYPD Lieutenant Jack LaTorre, 68, rode his bike over from Bay Ridge to Sunset Park Monday afternoon, hoping to ask New York City Mayor Eric Adams why he insists on trying to strip municipal retirees like him of their traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

A few weeks after losing another case in court, the heads of New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] now want City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to believe efforts to stop them from privatizing retiree health care hurts collective bargaining rights. But how’s that work? No one — including members of the MLC — appears to know.

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 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.

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

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

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 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.