By Bob Hennelly

On the same day labor unions gathered in lower Manhattan to memorialize workers who died on the job the previous year, the AFL-CIO released an alarming new report finding workers of color are dying on the job at increasingly higher rates — and fatalities for Black workers hit the highest level in nearly 15 years.

The Clock is Ticking

We returned to the bargaining table several days later and began by telling management we had nothing further to discuss until they withdrew three additional proposals:

Deleting the guarantee of two Sundays off per month

Forfeiting the right to argue grievances based on past practice

Permitting management to drug test at will without probable cause

By Steve Wishnia

The Supreme Court’s far-right majority seems to be leaning toward narrowing the grounds on which the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] can ask federal courts to order employers to reinstate fired union supporters while their unfair-labor-practice cases are pending.

By Joe Maniscalco

This year’s Labor Notes Conference in Chicago featured workshops reflecting labor’s support for single payer health care. What could not be ignored, however, are those powerful forces within the house of labor itself who not only oppose single payer — but who are actively pushing the privatization of traditional Medicare through so-called Medicare Advantage plans.

Or as one prominent single payer advocate Work-Bites spoke to called it — the “bastardization of Medicare.”

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Tuesday Labor Radio Hour, we visit with Fran Ehret, executive director of CWA of New Jersey. The union represents 70,000 workers in the private and public sector, as well as most of the workers who work for the State of New Jersey for a myriad of agencies that cover everything from environmental to health care and social services.

By Bob Hennelly

It’s the Moral Monday Labor Radio Hour’s special Earth Day Edition. On this week’s episode, we revisit one of Rev. Dr. William Barber’s most significant speeches on the climate crisis. We’re also reflecting on Worker Memorial Day, and exploring how the UAW is moving mountains in the deep south.

By Bob Hennelly

New York State’s $237 billion dollar budget is a kind of Rorschach test. What you see in it depends very much on who you are. For the unions that represent essential workers, it’s a barometer of their clout in Albany a year after COVID was declared over — and after it sickened or killed so many of their members.

By Joe Maniscalco

In this Work-Bites video, New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees President Marianne Pizzitola denounces the ongoing campaign to push New York municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan as “abhorrent” — and vows to put a stop to it.

By Joe Maniscalco

In this Work-Bites video, TWU Local 100 Retirees member Anita Clinton speaks out agains her union’s attempts to push retired transit workers into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees fighting to retain the Medicare coverage they were promised when they entered civil service rode Albany-bound buses for more than 150 miles and plied the halls of state power for over two hours on April 15, all in support of legislation aimed at protecting what they’ve already earned.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re discussing ongoing calls for Gaza ceasefire; the New York City municipal retirees’ battle to save Medicare going national; RWDSU pressing stores to protect retail workers and customers from violence; and Rutgers Unions fighting layoffs and program Cuts.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Moral Monday Labor Radio Hour, Rev. Dr. William Barber frames the 2024 moral imperative; North America’s farm workers speak out; and the News Guild fights to save local news in Rochester.

Dear Scott:

Earlier this year, you filed papers with the New York City Campaign Finance Board to form an exploratory committee as you consider another mayoral run (I received an email from “Team Stringer” asking for a donation).

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the spring of 1995, I was assigned to negotiate a first contract at the BTR Sealing Systems factory in Reidsville, North Carolina; recently organized by ACTWU (now Workers United.) The 450 hourly workers were engaged in the production of wiper blades for major automobile companies.

By Joe Maniscalco

In the span of two days, New York City retirees battling to save Medicare from extinction have called out corrupt union misleaders willing to sell out the entire labor movement for Medicare Advantage; challenged President Joe Biden to finally get real about what needs to be done to rescue Medicare; and provided a game plan on how to win back rank and file control from the misleadership class.

By Bob Hennelly

Unions representing the mostly women and people of color who comprise the majority of FDNY EMS first responders in New York City tell Work-Bites efforts by the City Council to better protect the workforce from deadly attacks on the job only underscores the pay and benefit disparity between them — and the mostly white males who constitute the bulk of FDNY firefighters.

By Joe Maniscalco

Problematic policing in the subways and a chronic inability to care for emotionally disturbed New Yorkers in need of help are the major reasons why MTA employees are going to work fearing attack, according to those Work-Bites spoke to recently.

By Bob Hennelly

On this week’s episode of the Moral Monday Radio Labor Hour, we join Rev. Dr. William Barber in New Haven, Connecticut for his Center for Public Theology and Public Policy Conference where attendees are asking, “What are the moral and spiritual issues of the 2024 Presidential Election?”

By Bob Hennelly 

For years, with a surreal break during the COVID, Atlantic City’s casino workers have been forced to endure life-threatening secondhand smoke because New Jersey’s Democratic machine, the casino operators, and the largest union representing casino workers were all worried enforcing the state’s 2006 Smoke-Free Air Act would hurt business.

By Steve Wishnia

A Bronx landlord trade group has decided that it will not reopen its contract with 32BJ SEIU and seek concessions from the building-service workers union.