By Steve Wishnia

A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division has extended a temporary restraining order stopping the New York City Housing Authority from proceeding with its plan to demolish and privatize two Chelsea public-housing developments for at least seven weeks.

By Steve Wishnia

Less than 48 hours into their strike, New York University contract faculty reached a tentative deal for their first union contract.

The proposed five-year agreement, reached about 2 a.m. on March 25, will raise salaries for the about 950 professors and others who work on contracts at NYU by at least $14,000 by September, with $6,000 of that coming this academic year, the Contract Faculty Union-UAW said in its announcement. It also includes what the union called “a meaningful salary decompression adjustment,” one-time raises for longtime faculty who are paid less than more recent hires. 

By Steve Wishnia

A few seconds before 11 on the morning of March 23, about two dozen union members and supporters in front of New York University’s Paulson Center counted down—“Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”—and broke into a chant, “If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

“We’re officially on strike,” a woman said.

By Bob Hennelly

The US and Israeli war of choice continues to rage with devastating consequences with well over 2,500 deaths throughout the region, overwhelmingly mostly civilians including hundreds of children. Three weeks in and the UN Secretary Antonio Guterres was quoted as suggesting that both sides in the US-Israel war on Iran have likely already committed war crimes.

By Joe Maniscalco

New mayoral administration or not, New York City municipal retirees continuing to fight for legislation protecting their health care from assault are heading up to Albany this week to lobby for some state-level action.

By Joe Maniscalco

Two years ago, then mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani told home care workers rallying in support of the “No More 24” bill that round-the-clock shifts in the industry must end.

This week, those workers started a daily sit-in outside the gates of City Hall to hold the new mayor to account—and they got some surprise help from City Council Speaker Julie Menin, too.

By Bob Hennelly

Last week, the same day the City Council started the ball rolling on giving itself a raise, workers packed the steps of City Hall demanding a $30 minimum wage. It was just last month, faced with the need to get hundreds of able bodied New Yorkers to shovel snow, Mayor Mamdani boosted per diem shoveler's from $19 to $30 an hour.

By Steve Wishnia

“We are standing with the brave families who are resisting the pressure and refusing to leave their homes,” Elliott-Chelsea Houses resident Celines Miranda told a group of about 150 protesters outside 401-419 West 19th St. in Chelsea March 14.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: Several years ago, Phil Cohen authored an indispensable training manual in labor law for rank and file workers called “Enforcing Your Rights.” Work-Bites is happy to bring you the continuing serialization of that book with this latest chapter on worker’s comp.

Every company I’ve dealt with is crooked when it comes to worker’s comp, and deliberately confuses employees about their rights.

By Joe Maniscalco

Community activist Layla Law-Gisiko wants to be in the New York City Council so that she can stop the political machine from getting any closer than it already is to demolishing two thriving communities in Chelsea—and putting yet another nail in public housing’s coffin nationwide in the process.

By Joe Maniscalco

Anyone who thought electing a mayor calling himself a “Democratic Socialist” would be enough to silence working class New Yorkers shunted aside and ignored under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and Governor Kathy Hochul should take a look at the demonstration that took place outside City Hall on International Women's Day.

By Steve Wishnia

The One Fair Wage campaign, which wants to end the lower minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers, is trying to get that added to proposed city legislation to let New York City restaurants have outdoor dining year-round.

By Joe Maniscalco

It’s day four of what could be the start of World War III, but the United States’ most powerful counterforce to the increasing carnage—in arguably the most “union strong" city in the country—remains conspicuously on the sidelines.

By Bob Hennelly

Over the weekend, President Trump, who ran on a platform of 'no more wars' declared one on Iran with the launch of a massive air attack on that country of over 90 million in coordination with Prime Minister Netanyhu and the Israeli military.

By Steve Wishnia

Faculty at New York University who work on contracts will go on strike Monday, March 23 if they can’t reach a deal with the university by then, their union announced Feb. 27.

By Joe Maniscalco

Newly-minted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani certainly has had his hands full running back and forth to D.C. trying to make nice with Donald Trump and digging out from the Blizzard of ’26—but he really ought to catch a screening of “A Home Worth Fighting For” if he hasn’t already done so.

By Steven Wishnia

Bruce Springsteen’s “The Streets of Minneapolis” is the best protest song of the 21st century.

It’s an instant song, born in a burst of outrage, much like Florence Reese scribbled the words to “Which Side Are You On?” on the back of a calendar 95 years ago, after Harlan County Sheriff J.H. Blair’s goons broke into her house looking for her husband during a coal miners’ strike in the Kentucky Appalachians.

By Bob Hennelly

The Road to Raleigh 

Last week, Pacifica Radio went to North Carolina to cover Bishop William Barber's march from Wilson to Raleigh, North Carolina's state capital. The 50 miles trek was to draw national attention to the Republican state legislature's push to gerrymander out of existence the 1st CD, an historically Black Congressional district where just 48 percent of the residents are white and a majority are Black or something else. 

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Council is a small but powerful fiefdom where bills benefiting ordinary working class people live and die according to the dictates of just one person—the Speaker.

Or at least that’s the way it used to be under former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ rule.

By Joe Maniscalco

Home care workers forced to work slavish round-the-clock shifts and individually owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen wages cheered a New York City Council hearing on the “No More 24” bill this week hoping a majority vote and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s signature won’t be too far behind.