By Joe Maniscalco

Just like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, FDNY EMS Officers Union Local 3621 Vice-President Anthony Almojera identifies as a democratic socialist, and has since the 90s, for about as long as the mayor has been alive. 

But does that mean he believes City EMTs and paramedics will finally achieve the pay parity with cops and firefighters that mayors going all the way back to Edward I. Koch and his administration have promised?

By Bob Hennelly

The ongoing war in Iran and Lebanon that has killed thousands of civilians, struck closer to home this week with the combat death of 28 year-old Sgt. Angel Sarah Rampersad from Ozone Park, Queens who died when her base in Jordan came under an Iranian missile and drone attack.

By Steve Wishnia

Trying to protect federal workers’ rights under Donald Trump’s rule has been a one-battle-after-another scenario—and this month, it’s happening on three fronts.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City home care workers fighting to end the 24-workday and reclaim stolen wages potentially totaling millions of dollars are calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to abandon any further efforts to appeal two recent court decisions moving them closer to ultimate victory. 

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of WBAI’s What’s Going On? we check in with our FDNY EMS unions about a new bill introduced by New York City Council Member Joann Ariola, who chairs the Council's Fire and Emergency Management Committee, to provide a $20,000 retention and recruitment bonus for FDNY EMTS and $25,000 payment to FDNY EMS paramedics.

By Joe Maniscalco

Editor’s Note: Work-Bites recently had the opportunity to talk to Anthony Almojera, Vice-President of FDNY EMS Officers Union Local 3621, about the crisis facing New York City EMTs and paramedics. This is Part I of a two-part report.   

We are more than halfway through New York City Mayor Mamdani’s first year in office and the unaddressed crisis facing municipal EMTs and paramedics has grown so bad FDNY EMS Lieutenant Anthony Almojera reports that three members battling suicidal ideation have reached out to him for help in the last six weeks alone.

By Joe Maniscalco

There’s an early passage in Matewan Blood & Coal, Kevin Corley’s riveting novelization of the 1920 West Virginia coal miner’s strike and Battle of Blair Mountain where he writes about how “The moon cast long shadows over Matewan’s emptied streets: gunpowder lingered in the air, faint but unmistakable, like history refusing to leave quietly.”

Can you see it?

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin is calling on No More 24 combatants to hammer out their differences this week after home care workers and their advocates brought the fight to end the 24-hour workday to her doorstep in Manhattan.

By Joe Maniscalco

This summer, New York City beaches are once again operating with a shortage of qualified lifeguards—and the woman who spent nearly a half century guarding those beaches says there is something more “sinister” about the chronic shortfall than what’s routinely reported.

By Bob Hennelly

According to New York City officials, the 37-story midtown high-rise at risk of collapsing last week has been stabilized.

The former Pfizer office tower was in the midst of being converted into luxury apartments when workmen discovered steel structural supports on the 21st floor bent in half under the weight of the upper floors.

By Joe Maniscalco

Public housing advocates battling the privatization and demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] houses on Manhattan’s West Side are vowing to fight on despite a devastating blow from the courts this week. 

By Steve Wishnia

“They killed my cousin,” says the Brooklyn man, a Haitian immigrant in his 40s, explaining why he came to the United States four years ago. He asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

By Joe Maniscalco

On this episode of Labor and Healthcare Confidential host Marianne Pizzitola talks with Work-Bites contributor Bob Hennelly about the creation of a special online portal to search soon-to-be-released 9/11 files related to the air toxicity emanating from Ground Zero following the terrorist attack on New York City in 2001.

Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is a member of both the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees and Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations.

By Harry Weiner

On July 2, COGE issued a Preliminary Report, and it is disappointing that there has been no outreach to retirees from City service. And it glosses over health benefits, a significant portion of the budget.

By Joe Maniscalco

On July 28, New York City home care workers fighting for passage of the No More 24 bill in the City Council will again stage a hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall to end the 24-hour workday. 

By Bob Hennelly

Recent record-level heat saw temperatures approach 100 degrees with a "feels like" heat and humidity index approaching several degrees above that.

Throughout the heat emergency, scores of FDNY EMS ambulances sat idle, due to lack of staffing according to the FDNY EMS unions which noted call volumes exceeded 6,000 a day with some calls being held for a couple of hours.

By Steve Wishnia

The Supreme Court ruled June 29 that it was an unconstitutional limitation on the President’s powers for Congress to establish independent agencies whose officials can’t be fired without cause, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

By Steven Zheng

Editor’s Note: Steven Zheng is NYU student organizer from Youths Against Sweatshop and the Yecao Collective.

New York’s home care workers are still fighting to pass Intro. 303 because they are still fighting to abolish one of the most brutal labor arrangements the city continues to tolerate: the 24-hour workday.

By Steve Wishnia

In a 6-3 ruling on June 25, the Supreme Court held this week that the Trump administration has the right to revoke Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, exposing more than 300,000 people to possible deportation.

By Joe Maniscalco

The whole world is watching New York City’s fight to end the 24-hour workday and Governor Kathy Hochul is guilty of breaking international labor laws.