Work-Bites

In this on-the-spot Work-Bites video, APWU President Mark Dimondstein helps make the case at a Thursday rally outside the Wells Fargo branch on 7th Avenue and 39th St. in Manhattan that Wall Street stands to make huge profits if all, or parts of the USPS are sold off—but that those of us who live on Main Street would have less service and higher costs; rural areas would be especially hard hit; both small businesses and the trillion-dollar e-commerce industry would be devastated—and the ability to vote by mail would be undermined.

By Joe Maniscalco

New Yorkers who don’t like the idea of the U.S. Postal Service being sold off and privatized—not unlike similar efforts underway to privatize Traditional Medicare and every other public good—are being urged to come out and support unionized postal workers tomorrow morning in Manhattan near Times Square.

By Joe Maniscalco

This past April, labor advocates for single payer health care published a white paper called, “Medicare Advantage: What Labor Leaders Need to Know.”

In it, the authors remind labor leaders—including those in New York City who spent the last four years trying to push 250,000 municipal retirees into Medicare Advantage—that Medicare Advantage is “neither Medicare (the public, universal program without intermediaries between patients and the healthcare they need), nor is it an Advantage, except to profit-driven insurance companies.”

Editor’s Note: This is an open letter to NYS Assembly Member Tony Simone, NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher, and Congress Member Jerrold Nadler Chief of State Robert Gottheim, following the recent Town Hall held at P.S. 33 in Manhattan regarding NYCHA’s plan to to privatize and demolish the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses. You can read more about that plan here. For the record, upon review of the available transcript, kindly note that only one of the 7/9/25 CB4 Town Hall Panelists, Robert Gottheim, Congressman Nadler’s Chief of Staff, mentioned the expression, “In an ideal world.”

By Lizette Colón

I woke up this morning with the following  phrase roaming in my mind and soul: “..In an ideal world…”. It was a phrase used several times by you, as the invited elected officials to the CB4 Town Hall held last night at PS 33.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams may have announced his decision in June to abandon efforts to push 250,000 municipal retirees and their dependents into a profit-driven health insurance plan nobody wants—but ever since then, Hizzoner and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams have been batting around the ultimate fate of retiree health care around like a ping-pong ball.

By Joe Maniscalco

Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Party mayoral primary with 56 percent of the vote in large part because younger New York City voters are sick and tired of the Democratic Party Machine and it’s fossilized goon squad of neoliberal freaks who’s sole purpose in life is to neuter working class power.

By Joe Maniscalco

War has never been good for working class people anywhere in the world and it isn’t good for working class people anywhere in the world now.

Roughly two hundred people assembled in Times Square this past Sunday afternoon for an emergency street action challenging the Trump administration’s unconstitutional bombing of Iran over the weekend. Similar emergency demonstrations were also held in dozens of places around the United States.

By Steve Wishnia

“Medicaid!” “Saves lives!” health-care workers chanted in call-and- response outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights June 23. The overhead passageway between two buildings provided a bit of shade but no protection from the 93-degree heat. “Keep the hospitals open,” called out a woman with “Healthcare Hero” on the back of her shirt.

By Joe Maniscalco

Despite Mayor Adams announcement on Friday that he is abandoning the Medicare Advantage push, New York City municipal retirees will continue to “hound” uncommitted City Council members until they finally sign onto legislation protecting the Traditional Medicare and MediGap benefits they earned on the job.

By Steve Wishnia

Uber and Lyft drivers rallied outside the gates of City Hall June 18, calling on the City Council to pass a bill that would prohibit app-based cab companies from “deactivating” them—cutting off their access to the app—without just cause, and set up a city-run procedure for them to defend themselves before they get sacked.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced today that his administration is abandoning the Medicare Advantage push—at least for now.

“We’re announcing that we're not moving forward with the Medicare Advantage plan, specifically because the mayor, over many months, has heard from retirees that they're worried about whether it'll be affordable for them,” Spokesperson Liz Garcia told Work-Bites on Friday.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Oh, you silly civil servants…your big mistake was believing what you were reading and what you were told throughout your whole career working for the City of New York—thanks, though, for helping out during 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, Covid, and all the rest of it. You’re the best, God bless!

By Joe Maniscalco

“We deserve a mayor who will meet this moment,” Assembly Member and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani [D-36th District] told supporters ahead of New York City’s massive “No Kings”  march down 5th Avenue on Saturday.

By Steve Wishnia

The best time for housing in New York was the post-World War II period, says Renee Keitt, head of the tenant association at the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan. It was the era when more than two-thirds of the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) 180,000 apartments were constructed, the state’s Mitchell-Lama program built another 140,000 units designated for working and middle-class residents, and union-backed developments added thousands more.

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 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 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.

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.