By Joe Maniscalco

“We can make this happen.” 

That was the hopeful message State Senator Joseph Addabbo [D-15th District] delivered to New York City municipals retirees in Albany this week to continue fighting for statewide legislation protecting the Traditional Medicare coverage they earned after decades on the job. 

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 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 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.

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 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 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.

By Joe Maniscalco

Striking NewYork-Presbyterian hospital nurses decisively voted down a tentative deal with management last week that many insist the heads of the New York State Nurses Association [NYSNA] should never have tried to advance—and this weekend many on the picket line were still feeling burned by their own union. 

By Steve Wishnia 

One day after they rejected a proposed new contract by a 3–1 margin, nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital were back on the picket line on both sides of the Washington Heights medical center Feb. 12.

By Joe Maniscalco

Striking New York City nurses stormed over the Brooklyn Bridge on the 23rd day of their historic walkout last week convinced of the fight’s importance to the rest of American labor movement today, and generations of nurses to come.

This week, they are winding down that strike under a cloud of controversy with many objecting to what they see as a lack of transparency among the upper echelons of the New York State Nurses Association [NYSNA] and a “sellout contract” being forced down the throats of rank and file members.

By Joe Maniscalco

Safe starting ratios and protections against workplace violence remained top of mind for striking New York City nurses still holding down the line outside Mount Sinai West on 10th Avenue in Manhattan on Friday afternoon—even as at least some of them gave Mayor Zohran Mamdani a pass for endorsing hospital boss-ally Governor Kathy Hochul’s re-election bid. 

By Steve Wishnia

Fifteen months after they began talks for their first union contract, more than 900 professors at New York University will begin voting on whether to authorize a strike on Monday, Feb.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City nurses marched into the fourth week of their historic strike Tuesday morning optimistic that they were finally close to a deal with management, but also roiling underneath the possible threat hospital bosses might “PATCO” the entire walkout and replace them all—permanently.