By Joe Maniscalco

Despite Mayor Adams announcement on Friday that he is abandoning the Medicare Advantage push, New York City municipal retirees will continue to “hound” uncommitted City Council members until they finally sign onto legislation protecting the Traditional Medicare and MediGap benefits they earned on the job.

By Steve Wishnia

Uber and Lyft drivers rallied outside the gates of City Hall June 18, calling on the City Council to pass a bill that would prohibit app-based cab companies from “deactivating” them—cutting off their access to the app—without just cause, and set up a city-run procedure for them to defend themselves before they get sacked.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced today that his administration is abandoning the Medicare Advantage push—at least for now.

“We’re announcing that we're not moving forward with the Medicare Advantage plan, specifically because the mayor, over many months, has heard from retirees that they're worried about whether it'll be affordable for them,” Spokesperson Liz Garcia told Work-Bites on Friday.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Oh, you silly civil servants…your big mistake was believing what you were reading and what you were told throughout your whole career working for the City of New York—thanks, though, for helping out during 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, Covid, and all the rest of it. You’re the best, God bless!

By Joe Maniscalco

“We deserve a mayor who will meet this moment,” Assembly Member and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani [D-36th District] told supporters ahead of New York City’s massive “No Kings”  march down 5th Avenue on Saturday.

By Steve Wishnia

The best time for housing in New York was the post-World War II period, says Renee Keitt, head of the tenant association at the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan. It was the era when more than two-thirds of the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) 180,000 apartments were constructed, the state’s Mitchell-Lama program built another 140,000 units designated for working and middle-class residents, and union-backed developments added thousands more.

By Steve Wishnia 

Chants of “No More 24” and “Vote for Marte” alternated on the corner of Clinton and Grand streets on the Lower East Side June 6, as a few hundred people gathered for a rally and march supporting the re-election of City Councilmember Christopher Marte.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Council Member Chris Marte—sponsor of the bill protecting municipal retiree health care—dismissed attacks on the legislation as outright “lies” Thursday night on the Lower East Side and predicted the measure will ultimately pass.

By Joe Maniscalco

If Mayor Eric Adams is ultimately successful in blowing up what used to constitute a “good city job” for generations of New Yorkers by pushing Medicare Advantage on 250,000 retirees it’ll be because the political establishment—both “left” and “right” have agreed to ball up the Medicare & Medicaid Act of 1965 and toss it in the garbage can.

And then light the whole thing on fire.

By Bob Hennelly

WBAI Pacifica Radio was graced for several years with the on-air presence of  Tom Robbins, a fearless reporter who did stories about working people and their challenges getting by in a city and nation that increasingly served the rich.

By Joe Maniscalco

After 15 months in receivership, members of the District Council 37 Retirees Association still have no idea this week when they’ll ever regain control of their organization once again following a rare in-person general meeting held at the union’s headquarters on Thursday.

By Joe Maniscalco

Throughout the four-year battle to stop New York City from pushing municipal retirees into a predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance plan and blowing up what used to constitute “a good city job” for generations of New Yorkers—City Council Speaker and now mayoral hopeful Adrienne Adams has stood on the sidelines and worked hard to make sure her fellow legislators remained there, too. 

By Steve Wishnia

A bill to revive New York’s tax on stock transfers, which has been rebated since 1981, could bring the state some $13 billion a year in revenue—but it is drawing almost zero support from labor unions.

By Bob Hennelly

After a 3-day strike, the Teamsters Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET) have reached a tentative deal with NJ Transit. 

“While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month, and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” Tom Haas, head of the union’s unit that represents the NJ Transit engineers, said in a statement.

By Joe Maniscalco

Are the seven justices now deliberating the case that will largely determine if the City of New York is allowed to strip municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits sitting on the New York State Court of Appeals…or the NYS Court of Schlemiels?

By Joe Maniscalco

Whether or not the New York State Court of Appeals ultimately delivers a ruling blocking New York City Mayor Eric Adams from stripping municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits, retirees insist legislation in the City Council protecting them must be enacted.

By Joe Maniscalco

A couple of years ago, Mayor Eric Adams defended trying to strip 250,000 municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits and throwing them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan in the the worst ways possible on two separate occasions in Brooklyn where Work-Bites was present.

By Bob Hennelly

On Friday, federal immigration police seized Newark Mayor Ras Baraka off of a public street outside Delaney Hall, a controversial private prison, operated by the GEO Corporation, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. This for-profit, publicly traded, multinational employs 18,000 people at over 50 sites here and abroad.  

By Joe Maniscalco

Two years ago at a Medicare rally for municipal retirees outside the gates of City Hall, IBT Local 831 retiree John Pinard expressed his utter astonishment and disbelief that a labor leader he considered “the most courageous fighter I’ve ever seen in my life” was trying to strip former civil servants like him of their traditional healthcare and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams doesn’t think voters should believe Andrew Cuomo when he says he won’t try and push municipal retirees into a Medicare Advantage health insurance plan if he’s elected mayor this fall.