By Steve Wishnia

On the chilly gray afternoon of Apr. 28, mourners laid red roses and white carnations on a table in Manhattan’s Foley Square, reading the names of workers who died on the job in New York City in the past year.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

They came from all over New Jersey and reflected the state’s diversity yet all of them shared a desire to protect the public’s safety. As a consequence, they paid the ultimate price for keeping that commitment in the brutal onslaught that was COVID which hit an unprepared nation hard.

By Steve Wishnia

In 1960, when the federal minimum wage was $1 an hour and did not cover workers in nursing homes or construction, the New York State Department of Labor established a regulation that home health-care attendants working 24-hour shifts should only get paid for 13 hours, because they have the other 11 hours off for eating, sleeping, and breaks

By Bob Hennelly

CVS Health has named Brian Kane as the Executive Vice President and President of Aetna, effective September 1. He will report to CVS Health President and CEO Karen S. Lynch. Last month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed a contract with Aetna as part of the administration’s campaign to strip 250,000 municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program.

By Bob Hennelly

 This week a growing coalition of labor, faith-based, and advocacy non-profits that support seniors, the disabled and New York’s low wealth households will be turning up the pressure on Albany to resist what they say are draconian healthcare budget cuts proposed by Gov. Kathleen Hochul.

By Raanan Geberer

There was a time when getting a “good city job” was good advice. Traditionally, civil service has also provided marginalized populations and individuals with difficulties in their lives with avenues to prosperity they might not have otherwise enjoyed.

By Steve Wishnia

Hundreds of home health-care attendants packed the sidewalk outside City Hall on Apr. 12, demanding that the City Council pass a bill to limit their shifts to 12 hours and end the system of them working 24-hour shifts for 13 hours’ pay.

By Bob Hennelly

While close to a thousand New York City retired civil servants rallied outside City Hall to protest Mayor Adams’ deal with Aetna’s Medicare Advantage Plan, inside it was business as usual. On April 11, the City Council passed several bills including legislation to ban the commercial sale of Guinea pigs which had evidently proliferated during the pandemic.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Richard Alles and 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund activist John Feal were outspoken at this week’s massive rally against efforts to strip New York City municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program — tearing into both Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] for spearheading the drive. Here’s a sample:

By Joe Maniscalco

The supposedly most progressive New York City Council to date could choose to advance proposed legislation protecting traditional Medicare benefits for municipal retirees — instead it’s watching ailing senior citizens fighting for what they’ve earned collapse on the streets and being out-lefted by the Republican members in its ranks.

By Steve Wishnia

With a bill to end home health-care aides’ punishing 24-hour shifts on hold in the City Council, activists are planning a rally outside City Hall Wednesday, Apr. 12, to push Speaker Adrienne Adams to schedule a vote on the measure.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees urging Mayor Eric Adams to revisit the health insurance contract he just signed with Aetna to include an option for traditional Medicare want Hizzoner to know they’re just as “strong and determined” as millions of French people in the streets protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s grossly undemocratic bid to raise France’s retirement age to 62.

By Bob Hennelly

New York City Council members wasted little time blasting Mayor Eric Adams as “shameful” for signing a pact with Aetna Insurance and pushing the city’s 250,000 retired civil servants into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage healthcare plan.

By Steve Wishnia

New York City has signed a contract with the Aetna insurance company to provide a private Medicare Advantage health-insurance plan to the about 250,000 retired municipal workers. The deal, announced Mar. 30 by Mayor Eric Adams and Office of Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion, means retirees will no longer be able to use traditional Medicare unless they pay for coverage themselves.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Three years after New Jersey was upended by the COVID virus, a coalition of New Jersey’s healthcare unions are warning that without a legally enforceable nurse to patient ratio, nurses will continue to leave the state’s acute care hospitals already facing a skilled nursing shortage.

By Bob Hennelly

Dozens of outraged New York City retired civil servants dialed into a teleconferenced public hearing convened by the city’s Office of Labor Relations on March 21, a legal perquisite to advance the controversial $200 million Aetna Medicare Advantage contract being promoted by the Adams administration and the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC].

By Steve Wishnia

A group of seven New York City municipal retirees protesting NYC’s plan to privatize their Medicare coverage slipped into the Conrad Hilton hotel today in Battery Park City where the Aetna insurance company was about to hold a session to prepare union staff on how to tell retirees about the company’s Medicare Advantage plan.

By Bob Hennelly

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said that City Council will not take up legislation proposed in a letter from the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees to prevent the city’s retirees from being forced into a controversial Aetna Medicare Advantage plan that was approved earlier this month by the Municipal Labor Committee.

Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is lifelong New Yorker who devoted more than 30 years of his life working for the New York City Housing Authority. As as an IBT Local 237 member, Harry feels his union betrayed him when it voted in favor of stripping NYC municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and pushing them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan with Aetna.

This is his open letter to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander urging him to investigate the Municipal Labor Committee’s Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired New York City librarian Dana Simon was in an Aetna managed care plan back in 2007 when the night before she was scheduled to have her cochlear implant replaced — she received a call from the for-profit health insurance company warning her to cancel the surgery because they weren’t covering the operation.