By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 — on strike since Aug. 4 — have reached a tentative contract deal, the union and hospital confirm.

By Ryn Gargulinski

The day came when I absolutely, positively, no-bones-about-it hated my desk. I hated it so much I could no longer even sit there. That day arrived after I parted ways with a work-from-home job that had kept me chained to that desk for 10-hour days with tracking software — for two years straight.

Ugh. My mind was numb. My body was probably showing signs of that sitting disease thing. And my soul rebelled in a big way, refusing to sit at that desk for even a minute!

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we welcome Jonathan Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, Judy Danella, president of the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200, and New York State Assemblyman Phil Steck to talk about the UAW contract, the ongoing nurses strike in NJ — and getting our money back from Wall Street!

By Bob Hennelly

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his chief of staff Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti held a zoom session with the leadership of the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 that’s been on strike for safer staffing at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. It was the first such meeting  with the union that represents 1,700 nurses that have been out since Aug. 4.

By Steve Wishnia

Swedish postal workers are refusing to deliver mail or packages to Tesla facilities in order to support a strike by mechanics at the company’s service centers there. It is one of many solidarity actions by Swedish unions that would be illegal under U.S. law.

By Bob Hennelly

While most all of the nation is at home enjoying the joys of their families at Thanksgiving, members of United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 will be out on the picket line in front of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey on strike for safer staffing as they have been since Aug. 4.

These 1,700 dedicated healthcare professionals have been stripped of their healthcare coverage by RWJBarnabas, which is self-insured. The multi-billion dollar “non-profit” hospital chain paid its CEO $17 million in the second year of the COVID pandemic, and has shelled out well over $100 million to pay replacement nurses in their full court press to break the union, according to the union.

By Bob Hennelly

On this week’s edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we zero in on two prolonged strikes in New Jersey, as well as New York City’s ongoing struggle to deliver basic services. The average response time for a city ambulance to answer a life-threatening emergency now exceeded ten minutes. It’s time to start collecting the Stock Transfer Tax  — is it also time to strike, too? 

By Joe Maniscalco

More Americans are taking their demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to the streets — but it continues to be a different story in the workplace where many are feeling pressure from their their bosses — and sometimes, their unions — to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.

By Joe Maniscalco

Advocates pushing for passage of the “No More 24” bill in the New York City Council put 200 or more people in the streets outside City Hall on Thursday, Nov. 16, loudly demanding Speaker Adrienne Adams stop blocking the measure or step down. They promise to be back and be even louder — next month.

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, and Shèngdàn Kuàilè, indeed, Adrienne!

By Bob Hennelly 

New York City public sector unions are blasting Mayor Eric Adams’ mid-year budget cuts aimed at closing a $7 billion dollar budget gap Hizzoner says was created by a confluence of addressing the migrant crisis, the ending of federal COVID aid and the slowing of tax revenues.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

As expected, this last election voter turnout was abysmal and I suspect that in New Jersey, where elected officials have been known to look to get their family members into office, the power structure likes to keep it that way.

By Joe Maniscalco

Underneath the fight municipal retirees are waging in New York City and other places around the country to save their traditional Medicare benefits from the onslaught of privatized Medicare Advantage plans lies a systemic defect in today’s labor movement that if not finally corrected guarantees some harder times ahead — for retirees and active workers alike.

By Bob Hennelly

On the latest episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio hour we look at both the UAW deal, as well as the ongoing United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 strike for safer staffing at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. Plus, we take an up close look at military spending and the Move the Money campaign…

By Bob Hennelly

New York City’s dual homelessness and migrant crisis could be poised to get much worse as the Adams administration presses ahead with mid-year austerity measures as federal COVID aid dries up and tax revenues lag.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, Retired FDNY EMT Marianne Pizzitola, president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees updates listeners on her group’s campaign to prevent the Adams administration and the heads of the MLC from forcing 250,000 retired civil servants off traditional Medicare and onto a predatory Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan.

Noted labor historian Joe Wilson, who also joins the discussion, notes  how tens of thousands of city employees who worked in lower paying titles like FDNY EMS, rely on their existing retiree healthcare to get by.

By Joe Maniscalco

“If I hear the damn stabilization fund one more time, I'm going to scream,” New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees recently told Work-Bites.

Pizzitola was reacting to CWA Local 1180 President and Municipal Labor Committee trustee Gloria Middleton’s recent assertion that the Covid depleted New York City’s Health Stabilization Fund — thereby ostensibly leaving privatization and Medicare Advantage the only viable way for the City of New York to cover the health care costs of its municipal retirees.

By Joe Maniscalco

A couple of weeks ago, Marianne Pizzitola, head of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR], approached CWA Local 1180 President Gloria Middleton during a union rally outside City Hall and asked if the two could talk about the ongoing campaign to privatize municipal healthcare.

“I really don’t have time,” Middleton responded…

By Steve Wishnia

Frustrated by management’s rejection of their proposal for annual pay increases after more than a year of contract talks, workers at Scholastic’s Magazines+ division held a one-day strike Nov. 1.

“We’re here about wages. There’s a hypocrisy involved,” production editor Alison Colby told Work-Bites as about 30 workers picketed outside the back entrance to Scholastic’s Soho offices, circling on the sidewalk between an inflatable Scabby the Rat and a banner of Clifford the Big Red Dog hanging from above the children’s publishing company’s bookstore.

By Joe Maniscalco

Hi, Mayor Adams. If you haven’t already seen it, we’d like to invite you to Thursday night’s encore performance of “Honorable But Broken - EMS in Crisis” at Cinema Village over on E. 22nd St. We saw it this past weekend as part of the Workers Unite! Film Festival and you’ve gotta see it, too. We know a guy there, and can probably get you in for nothing.

By Ryn Gargulinski

“Deck the halls, my ass.” That used to be my attitude toward the holidays, and I was lucky enough to find another person who felt that way. So we’d get together in December and mope.

Then she mentioned how the thought of moping all December made her depression creep into November. So we started commiserating even earlier.