By Joe Maniscalco

You know your for-profit, privatized Medicare Advantage health insurance plan really sucks when right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats actually unite to defeat its imposition on municipal retirees.

By Steve Wishnia

More than 7,000 nurses went on strike at 6 a.m. Jan. 9 after failing to reach a contract agreement with Mount Sinai Hospital in East Harlem and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, two of the largest privately owned hospitals in New York City.

By Steve Wishnia

Three New York City private hospitals have reached tentative contract deals with nurses, but more than 10,000 nurses at five others are still scheduled to strike on Jan. 9.

By Joe Maniscalco

After nearly 40 years working for the City of New York retired municipal employee Roberta Gonzalez expected to be traveling the world right about now.

“I always wanted to go to Israel,” the 70-year-old Sheepshead Bay resident told Work-Bites this week.

By Bob Hennelly

No members of the City Council spoke in favor of a controversial bill introduced Jan. 4 that would alter the city’s Administrative Code that covers the provision of health insurance for its employees that’s being advanced by the Adams administration and the Municipal Labor Committee.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Retirees opposing ongoing efforts to push them into a disastrous privatized health insurance plan aren’t buying Speaker Adrienne Adams’ sudden rationale for attempting to scrap the law that’s protected municipal healthcare for decades.

By Bob Hennelly 

On the eve of the introduction of controversial legislation to alter the city’s Administrative Code that covers the provision of health insurance for active and retired civil servants, the City Council’s Democratic leadership issued a statement asserting that no matter how they act on the legislation, Mayor Adams and the Municipal Labor Committee will be “moving forward to implement Medicare Advantage.”

By Joe Maniscalco

There are a lot of things about the campaign to push New York City municipal retirees into a scandal-plagued, for-profit Medicare Advantage insurance plan that stinks to workers who’ve risked everything — from 9/11 to Covid-19 — to help keep their city running.

By Bob Hennelly

Labor opposition to New York State Governor Kathy Hochul's selection of Judge Hector LaSalle to become New York State’s top jurist continued to intensify over the Christmas holiday. With no signs of either side backing down, the controversy was poised to devolve into a bruising battle exposing the Democratic State Senate caucus along its ideological fault lines once it reconvenes early next month.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Medicare Advantage is a complete and total sellout,” 78-year-old retired Highway Transportation Specialist Fred Newton told Work-Bites earlier this week.

By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco

While other major cities in America including Boston are moving to confront an alarming shortage of municipal workers, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander this week warns the Stuck Nation Radio Labor Hour “rather than taking an aggressive approach to fill vacancies — we’ve really done the opposite as part of an effort to balance gaps in the city budgets. We’re just leaving positions vacant regardless of whether they are really critical or not.”

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] can expect to catch a lot more hell from municipal retirees refusing to be pushed into a for-profit, privatized, Medicare Advantage plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

Collusion.

That’s what the campaign by New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] to push municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit Medicare Advantage healthcare program looks like to the many thousands who’ve spent more than a year trying to stop the plan.

By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco

Take a hard look around at some of the most incendiary labor struggles taking place in the nation right now — rail workers fighting the bosses over sick days; the demise of the Expanded Child Tax Credit; public sector workers watching their hard-fought contract gains vanish before their eyes — look closer and you’ll find the prohibitively high cost of healthcare is never far from the mix.

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Council — celebrated for being the most progressive in NYC history — is reportedly still searching for “clarity” on the campaign to push municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit Medicare Advantage health plan. Retired Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson has some.

“Your medical care can really go off the rails,” Peterson recently told Work-Bites.

By Joe Maniscalco

Sometimes, jobs can get so bad they kill. Ivan Frias, went to work last Monday November 28, and never came home again after plunging off the 15th Floor of a 23-story building located at West 72nd Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Tuesday of next week will be the last public hearing being held by New Jersey’s Coronavirus Disease Pandemic Task Force on Racial and Health Disparities where people can offer their first-hand account of their COVID tribulation that at last count killed over 35,110 New Jersey residents and 1.1 million Americans nationally.

By Joe Maniscalco with Dana Jacks

From New York City adjunct professors striking for a living wage to US railroad workers fighting for the right to call in sick — working class people across the country are increasingly feeling the power of collective action.

By Steve Wishnia

A group of retired city workers is asking state courts to stop the $15 copayment for medical treatment the city and its health-insurance companies began charging in January.

By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco

Despite two consecutive losses in court and ample evidence that Medicare Advantage is a bad deal for seniors — the City of New York continues to push it’s municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit health insurance plan.

The Adams administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee insist healthcare costs are bleeding the city dry.