By Joe Maniscalco

In 2018, my partner and I found ourselves in Paris, France on the eighth day of the burgeoning Yellow Vest Movement navigating the bonfires openly burning along Franklin Delano Roosevelt Avenue.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “What’s Going On?” We speak with Maura Collinsgru, policy director with Citizen Action, Carol Tanzi, chief shop steward of USW Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200, and Larry Hamm, founder of the People’s Organization for Progress. 

By Bob Hennelly

The Trump administration sparked community protests in Los Angeles over the weekend after sending squads of military gear-equipped ICE agents on high-profile raids throughout the city including a local Home Depot where many day laborers typically gather for work.  

By Steve Wishnia 

Chants of “No More 24” and “Vote for Marte” alternated on the corner of Clinton and Grand streets on the Lower East Side June 6, as a few hundred people gathered for a rally and march supporting the re-election of City Councilmember Christopher Marte.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Council Member Chris Marte—sponsor of the bill protecting municipal retiree health care—dismissed attacks on the legislation as outright “lies” Thursday night on the Lower East Side and predicted the measure will ultimately pass.

By Bob Hennelly

In our current dystopian circumstance, it's hard to sort out the signal from the static. The barrage of Trump assaults on science, human rights, public health, global humanitarian aid, as well as on democracy and the rule of law itself make it near impossible to get our collective equilibrium.

By Joe Maniscalco

If Mayor Eric Adams is ultimately successful in blowing up what used to constitute a “good city job” for generations of New Yorkers by pushing Medicare Advantage on 250,000 retirees it’ll be because the political establishment—both “left” and “right” have agreed to ball up the Medicare & Medicaid Act of 1965 and toss it in the garbage can.

And then light the whole thing on fire.

By Joe Maniscalco

Songs have always been integral to working class struggle and the broader labor movement overall. Think of your favorite anthems from Odetta, Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie, or Bob Dylan and their amazing ability to instantly invoke the spirit of solidarity in anybody listening.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” we get a regional update from Shameka Burnette-Mathews from 1199SEIU about the union's strike at five for-profit nursing homes in western New York. We also speak to Debbie White, president of NJ's HPAE, which represents 14,000 nurses and healthcare workers, about the strike vote taken by her members at Southern Ocean Medical Center, which is part of the massive Hackensack Meridian Health hospital chain.

By Bob Hennelly

WBAI Pacifica Radio was graced for several years with the on-air presence of  Tom Robbins, a fearless reporter who did stories about working people and their challenges getting by in a city and nation that increasingly served the rich.

By Joe Maniscalco

After 15 months in receivership, members of the District Council 37 Retirees Association still have no idea this week when they’ll ever regain control of their organization once again following a rare in-person general meeting held at the union’s headquarters on Thursday.

Work-Bites

Hello Work-Bites Builders! Today we kick off a new weekly cartoon series from Work-Bites friends and contributors Tim Sheard and Ryn Gargulinski. ‘That’s Outrageous!’ imagines an ongoing mock debate portraying two very different political ideologies…

WAR STORIES By Phil Cohen

I returned to New York in 1979 after a year of traveling across Asia, accompanied by woman named Faye. I found an apartment in Sunnyside, Queens, a working-class neighborhood bordering Long Island City, and resumed driving taxis. But my new friend was a country girl and terrified of the urban environment.

By Bob Hennelly

On this special Memorial Day edition of “We Decide: America at the Crossroads” we’re talking about how the Trump/Musk junta is trying to cut 80,000 civil servants from the Veterans Administration which provides life saving healthcare to millions of our veterans.

By Bob Hennelly

This week the Republican controlled House passed by just one vote what President Trump calls his "one big beautiful bill" that provides obscene tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations while cutting hundreds of billions from safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps.

By Joe Maniscalco

As author Len Shindel says in the introduction to The Strike That Changed Maryland’s Wilderness County, he was “intent on getting some of the real dirt and gravel on the 1970 strike.”

By Bob Hennelly

The Teamsters Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET) have won their strike and reached a tentative agreement with NJ Transit that reflects a better deal than the one that management walked away from Thursday night.

By Bob Hennelly

On the latest episode of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” Issac Ferguson reports on acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba charging Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) with allegedly assaulting DHS/ICE officers as they were taking Newark Mayor Ras Baraka into custody on May 9.  

By Joe Maniscalco

Throughout the four-year battle to stop New York City from pushing municipal retirees into a predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance plan and blowing up what used to constitute “a good city job” for generations of New Yorkers—City Council Speaker and now mayoral hopeful Adrienne Adams has stood on the sidelines and worked hard to make sure her fellow legislators remained there, too. 

By Steve Wishnia

A bill to revive New York’s tax on stock transfers, which has been rebated since 1981, could bring the state some $13 billion a year in revenue—but it is drawing almost zero support from labor unions.