By Steve Wishnia

With the legislative clock ticking down toward the end of the year, scores of Uber and Lyft drivers rallied in the rain near City Hall Sept. 25, demanding that the City Council pass a bill to protect them against being fired without good cause and due process.

By Joe Maniscalco

The City of New York’s new health care plan for in-service and pre-Medicare municipal employees will directly impact the lives of hundreds of rank and file members of Plumbers Local 1—but the head of the union says he and his union have been kept completely in the dark about the proposal.

Work-Bites

Debra Lieberman has lived in the Chelsea Addition senior building on W. 27th Drive in Manhattan since 2013. Now, she and her neighbors are being told they have one month to "relocate" so that Related Companies and Essence Development can begin demolishing their apartments. It's all part of the “reimagining of public housing” in New York City.

By Steve Wishnia

Under the overhang of the Dinkins Municipal Building, City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens), joined by scores of Teamsters and various legislators, on Sept. 25 announced a bill that would require companies like Amazon to hire its delivery drivers as direct employees, instead of through subcontractors.

By Bob Hennelly

The BBC reports that British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned Israel  not to annex parts of the West Bank in retaliation for the United Kingdom's recognition of Palestinian  statehood. The warning comes as Britain joined several other nations including France to call for a Palestinian state. 

War Stories By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of Phil’s touching two-part saga recalling a very special relationship with a remarkable woman named Valerie. Here’s Part I in case you missed it.

PART II – The Hand of Fate Points South

Three years later I moved to North Carolina, found work as a city bus driver and became chief steward of the union local. I stayed in touch with Valerie and periodically visited at her new apartment on 92nd Street and West End Avenue.  Riverside Park was one block further west, where the vigilante played by Charles Bronson in Death Wish hunted for muggers. One had to remain vigilant at night, but it was a long way from the crime-infested labyrinth of the Lower East Side.

By Joe Maniscalco

You can’t take it with you—but if you’re the outgoing head of the New York City Council you can try and make sure the power you’ve built into the Speaker’s position over the last four years continues long after you’re out of office.

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “We Decide: America at the Crossroads” Communications Workers of America [CWA] President Claude Cummings Jr. joins Julianna Forlanno to discuss a nationwide boycott of T-Mobile in response to the wireless carrier’s about-face on DEI and embrace of President Trump and Elon Musk as part of their bid to close two  deals that needed FCC approvals.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the winter of 1970 at the age of nineteen, circumstances had left me homeless and broke on the streets of New York. A stack of arrest warrants associated with driving illegal gypsy cabs the previous year made finding steady work nearly impossible.

By Steve Wishnia

More than a year after United Federation of Teachers members angry about being switched into profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan unseated the union’s dominant Unity caucus from leading its retirees chapter, the chapter’s ability to advocate for preserving their traditional Medicare has been tightly-restricted.

By Bob Hennelly

In Gaza, the Israeli military continues its methodical demolition of one high-rise residential building after another after issuing an evacuation order for the entire civilian population of Gaza City. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has formally declared Israel's response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 civilians a genocide.

By Joe Maniscalco

Still struggling to get out of single digits in the latest polls, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams this week not only put the health and welfare of Central Park horses before the health and welfare of New York City municipal retirees—he did everything he could to fast-track the effort.

Work-Bites

One of the first things Donald Trump did when he came into office in January was fire National Labor Relations Board member Gwynn Wilcox, thereby depriving the NLRB the three-member quorum it needs to function.

Dear Council Member,

This Summer, the severity of the Emergency Medical Services staffing problem, as it is part of the FDNY, was clearly demonstrated. As temperatures in the city hovered near 100°F in June, the Mayor declared a Heat Emergency. During it, the average citywide ambulance response time to life-threatening medical emergencies climbed to 12 minutes and 19 seconds, the highest since March 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic.

By Joe Maniscalco

If New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher [D-3rd District] was home this weekend when outraged NYCHA public housing tenants came calling, he couldn’t have been very happy.

By Bob Hennelly

In the days after the 9/11 attack, the US EPA lied and said the air was safe to breathe in lower Manhattan. 24 years later, more people have now died from the toxic air in lower Manhattan than the 3,000 that died as a result of the attack.

By Joe Maniscalco

When public housing residents living in the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses marched in this year’s New York City Labor Day Parade to highlight the impending destruction of their homes, IBT Local 808 Secretary-Treasurer Chris Silvera and other members of his local marched with them.

By Harry Weiner

Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is a member of the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations [COMRO] and a frequent commenter on Work-Bites stories.

The [New York City] Office of Labor Relations ensures that the contract procurement process is impartial. Evaluation committee members are selected who are free of conflicts of interest. Members must sign a conflicts of interest/nondisclosure form affirming that no conflict of interest exists and to divulge any circumstances that may create an actual or apparent conflict of interest. A reasonable standard.

By Joe Maniscalco

A couple of very important things came out of Community Board 4's Sept. 3 meeting in which members officially rejected NYCHA’s plan to turn over the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses to private developers for demolition and reconstruction. 

By Robert Hennelly

Over 100,000 union members from 200 unions and their supporters marched up Fifth Ave. on Sept. 6 in the annual New York City Central Labor Council Labor Day Parade that took on additional significance this year because it comes as the Trump regime is trying to strip away the collective bargaining  rights of one million federal workers.