By Steve Wishnia

Workers in two Buffalo-area nursing homes have scheduled a one-day strike for August 28, after management refused to sign a contract it had agreed to in early July.

By Bob Hennelly

Gov. Phil Murphy's appointment of George Helmy, his former chief of staff who left his job to work for RWJ Barnabas Health in the midst of a bitter nurses strike over staffing, is a graphic example of the insular and self-dealing nature of our state’s politics.

By Joe Maniscalco

Advocates for New York City home care attendants forced to work punishing 24-hour shifts widely condemned as “modern day slavery” or at the very least “unfair”—say they have emails suggesting an alliance between one of the most influential Asian American social services organization in the nation and the New York State Department of Labor [NYSDOL] to kill a major probe exposing wholesale wage theft in the industry—and they want Attorney General Letitia James to investigate.

By Steve Wishnia

Calling the deal Mayor Eric Adams’ administration reached with Uber and Lyft to voluntarily reduce locking drivers out of their apps a toothless sham, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance plans further protests, leading up to a possible one-day strike soon.

By Joe Maniscalco

The ongoing destruction of what New Yorkers used to count on as “good city jobs” is a certain kind of egregious and boneheaded attack on working class families across the five boroughs—one that’s exemplified by the ongoing campaign to push municipal retirees into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” health insurance program. The privatization of public housing, however, is another.

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 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

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

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 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 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?

By Joe Maniscalco

Forcing older immigrant women of color to work punishing 24-hour shifts as home care workers is not fair and should stop, the head the agency responsible for assigning many of those same jobs told Work-Bites this week.

By Joe Maniscalco

All eyes in NYC’s Medicare Advantage fight should be on Mayor Eric Adams today, after UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s announcement over the weekend that he’s reversing course and no longer supporting the plan to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance program.

By Steve Wishnia

Workers at four rural nursing homes in Western New York voted to ratify a two-year contract, 1199SEIU announced June 21. The agreement, reached just before a strike deadline of June 13, covers about 300 workers at facilities in Allegany, Aurora Park, Orchard Park, and Westfield operated by the for-profit Absolut Care/RCA Servicer  chain.

By Bob Hennelly

Earlier this month, rank and file members of HPAE—New Jersey’s largest nurses’ union working at three different hospital systems—voted to authorize strikes if they didn’t get provisions in their contracts guaranteeing safer staffing ratios.

By Joe Maniscalco

Nope, contrary to what some of the most powerful union leaders in the country would have working people believe—organized labor does not have to abandon the Medicare benefits it fought so hard to achieve in favor of profit-mad Medicare Advantage health insurance plans [MAPs].

By Steve Wishnia

More than 300 workers at four for-profit nursing homes in western New York State will go on strike June 13 if they can’t reach a contract agreement. The main issues, according to workers and the 1199SEIU union, are chronic understaffing and unfair labor practices such as the owners imposing their contract offer on June 2.