War Stories By Phil Cohen

Part III – The Fine Art of Hustling

Every afternoon as I took my seat in the taxi, regardless of exhaustion levels or mood, my awareness shifted into overdrive. I felt like a fighter pilot about to go out on a mission. From the moment I hit the streets I was in a state of pure reaction time. If a cockroach tweaked its antenna in a garbage can a thousand yards away, I’d sense it. The street has zero tolerance for people who let their guard down. One has to constantly remain prepared for the unexpected and the only thing that can be trusted is instinct.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

Part II – Driving Upside Down

I was always on high alert when walking to the subway several hours past midnight. The majority of muggers initiate contact with victims by asking a polite question requiring an answer, leading to a discussion and building trust while casually approaching. A typical scenario goes like this:

By Joe Maniscalco

We saw a lot homemade signs at this past weekend’s mass anti-Trump rally in New York City all reflecting the working class anger and disgust many have about the current administration’s existential threat to the United States.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: This is Part I of Phil’s three-part saga returning to his wild days driving a cab on the streets of NYC in the early 1970s.

The truth is that life is hard and dangerous…. joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone; life is only for the one who is not afraid to die - Joyce Cary

During the fall of 1973, I was paying the rent by writing stories for second-string magazines and handing out flyers for an abortion clinic on 42nd Street.

By Steve Wishnia

Joined by El Salvador’s self-styled dictator Nayib Bukele, the Trump regime on Apr. 14 escalated its defiance of multiple court orders to “facilitate” the return of Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The 29-year-old Maryland construction worker has been in CECOT—El Salvador’s black-hole Terrorism Confinement Center prison for a month—along with 260 other immigrants who were seized and flown there March 15.

By Steve Wishnia

With the Trump regime’s minions defying court orders to turn over information about deported Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts, labor unions are calling on the government to “bring him home.”

By Steve Wishnia

To the Trump regime, 29-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an “enemy alien.” In a brief filed with the Supreme Court April 7, Solicitor General D. John Sauer called him “a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization,” to wit, “a ranking member of the MS-13 gang.”

War Stories By Phil Cohen

I scheduled a war council with committee members and stewards for Thursday afternoon. “Talk is getting us nowhere so we’ve got to up the ante to get their attention. I want to schedule shift meetings for next week and use them to organize a picket line the following week.”

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the shutdown period, I received a Cone Mills document filed in court for the purpose of justifying bankruptcy despite a recent return to profitability, explaining its primary liabilities:

A huge debt and huge dividend payouts to class A shareholders are bleeding the company. Interest rates and preferred dividends are exorbitant, and prevent the company from paying off $145 million in debts.

There was no reference to labor costs.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

For over a century, Cone Mills was an iconic denim manufacturer, spinning bales of raw cotton into yarn which was then woven into enormous rolls of cloth. Once the material had gone through the final stages of finishing, it was sold to large jean companies. Levi Strauss was their largest customer.

By Steve Wishnia

AUSTIN, Tex.—Carrying signs that read “Some Cuts Never Heal,” about two dozen nurses and supporters marched up to Sen. John Cornyn’s office in downtown Austin March 20, protesting the Trump-Musk administration’s proposed massive cuts to Medicaid.

By Joe Maniscalco

In an exclusive interview with Work-Bites in Times Square on Tuesday night, UAW Local 2710 President Grant Miner said the Trump administration’s naked attempt to crush the Columbia University’s student worker union is all part of an overall attack on labor and First Amendment rights. 

In other words: We’re all next.

By Steve Wishnia

When National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo was fired on Jan. 27, she received an email on behalf of Donald Trump. It said he had no confidence she would faithfully execute his objectives.

By Joe Maniscalco

“We definitely need to do something.”

Scores of working class New Yorkers—including laid off federal workers and anxious retirees—already pushed to the wall three months into the new Trump administration took to the streets of Lower Manhattan this weekend in a rebellious act of defiance that helped dispel some of the fear many have been experiencing.

By Ryn Gargulinski

So that means you’re unemployed? That was the first question I would often get when I started full-time freelancing in 2009, and the question usually came from someone in pastel-colored scrubs.

By Steve Wishnia

Donald Trump and JD Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky like two petty mobsters telling a bodega owner that they now own 50% of his business, two thin-skinned bullies berating him for “disrespect” because he wasn’t gushing thank-yous for the great deal they were giving him.

By Steve Wishnia

“How do you spell corruption? E-L-O-N!” about 250 picketers chanted in front of 26 Federal Plaza Feb. 19, in the first of two lower Manhattan protests to defend federal workers from the personnel purge by Donald Trump and his hectobillionaire hatchet man, Elon Musk. Five hours later, a crowd of about 750 filled the concrete island in Foley Square for an after-work rally.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During the spring of 2008, 49-year-old Steve Garrett worked a second shift in the ICQA (Incoming Quality Control Assurance) Department at the Kmart Distribution Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. This small department was responsible for inventory control, product inspection, and organizing storage space in the huge warehouse. Forklifts were used to transport pallets of merchandise for these purposes.

By Steve Wishnia

“We are putting out a distress signal to the American people,” says Chris Dols of the Federal Unionists Network.

The group, founded two years ago by leaders of locals in various federal employees’ unions, is organizing protests February 19 against the Trump-Musk administration’s assault on federal workers. It’s using the slogan “save our services.”

By Steve Wishnia

A federal judge in Boston on February 10 continued his halt on the Trump administration’s scheme to slash the federal workforce by offering to pay workers through September if they quit by Feb. 6.