‘No More 24’ Opponents Warn of ‘Care Gap’
By Steve Wishnia
A quartet of people in wheelchairs, joined by a handful of supporters, protested outside City Councilmember Christopher Marte’s Chinatown district office May 12, saying that Intro 303, his bill to prohibit 24-hour shifts for home-care aides, would lead to patients getting their care cut off.
Watered Down ‘No More 24’—the Bill Nobody Wants
By Joe Maniscalco
The hard-fought struggle to finally end institutionalized wage theft and round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry entered a new phase this week with a possible vote a bill nobody seems to want.
Backlash Against New Version of ‘No More 24’ Bill
By Steve Wishnia
City Council Speaker Julie Menin has introduced a version of the No More 24 Act that would extend how long home health-care workers may still do 24-hour shifts by six months.
Layla Law-Gisiko Vows to Keep City Council Run Alive; Calls Special Election Tally a Referendum Against Chelsea Demolition
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City public Housing advocate Layla Law-Gisiko may have lost her bid to win last month’s special election to fill Erik Bottcher’s vacated District 3 Council seat, but the vote once again proved that Chelsea residents reject plans to demolition their community.
May Day and Beyond: NYC Marchers Contemplate Labor’s Next Moves
By Steve Wishnia
Washington Square Park was a sea of orange May 1, as the Laborers International Union of North America brought hundreds of members from as far as New England and Delaware for the May Day march.
‘Tax Those Rich Mofos’—But Don’t Stop Rebating Billions to Wall Street??
By Joe Maniscalco
Repealing the New York State Stock Transfer Tax rebate could, according to supporters, generate as much as $40 billion to $75 billion annually for the most urgent needs facing working class New Yorkers today.
‘Hiding Behind a Socialist Banner’: Working Class New Yorkers Call Out Mamdani’s May Day Hypocrisy
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood inside Washington Square Park on May Day waxing poetically about socialist icon Eugene V. Debs and the battle for the eight hour workday.
But just 20-some-odd blocks away outside the gates of City Hall home care workers and their allies fighting to end the 24-hour workday and other working class struggles against privatization and displacement called out Hizzoner’s hypocrisy in turning a blind eye to all those ongoing battles.
NYC Retirees: Marte Bill Will Finally ‘Shut the Door’ on Campaign to Diminish Our Healthcare!
By Joe Maniscalco
Has the election Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as a recent UFT Delegate Assembly resolution declared, “definitively ended the immediate danger” of New York City municipal retirees being stripped of their Traditional Medicare and pushed into a predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance plan?
The ‘No More 24’ Revolution is Not Yet Complete; DSA Members Condemn Mayor Mamdani
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City home care workers fighting to ban the 24-hour workday capped off Week 1 of their hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall on Thursday confident City Council Speaker Julie Menin will finally green light a vote on legislation they want by mid-May.
Cold-Blooded Mamdani: NYC Seeks to Dismantle Hunger Strikers’ Shelter
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City law enforcement agents on Tuesday reportedly tried unsuccessfully to strip elderly home care workers of the makeshift tent they’re using to help withstand unseasonably frigid temperatures and rain during their ongoing hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall.
P.O.’ed At Speaker Menin: ‘All I See is Her Making An Empty Promise to Home Care Workers’
By Joe Maniscalco
The March 19 photograph of home care workers cheering New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin on the sidewalk as she promises to bring the “No More 24 bill” to the floor for a vote this month features prominently outside the gates of City Hall where the workers are now on the fifth day of their hunger strike.
NYC Home Care Workers Are On Hunger Strike—Speaker Julie Menin Could Be the Heroine They Need
By Joe Maniscalco
Despite some of the most powerful forces in New York State arraying against them, home care workers on hunger strike this week in support of the No More 24 bill thought they were finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
32BJ, Owners Reach Tentative Deal, With Pay & Pension Increases, No Two-Tier
By Steve Wishnia
New York residential-building workers and landlords have reached a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract, 32BJ SEIU and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations announced late in the afternoon Apr. 17—three days before the current contract expires.
NYC Building Service Workers Push Back Against RAB Attack—Authorize Strike
By Steve Wishnia
Arlind Lela led a chant of “Kursluftujmë fitojmë” at 32BJ SEIU’s rally April 15. That means “We fight and win” in Albanian, a language spoken by many of the building-service workers union’s members.
Five days before the contract covering 34,000 residential-building workers will expire, a crowd the union estimated at 10,000 people assembled in the downtown lanes of Park Avenue on the Upper East Side and authorized a strike by voice vote.
NYC Tenants: ‘Mayor Zohran Mamdani Doesn’t Believe Public Housing is Worth Saving’
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani doesn’t believe public housing is worth saving, according to tenants pushing back against ongoing plans to demolish 18 NYCHA buildings on the west side of Manhattan.
Welcome to the Zohran-Free Zone: Make Mamdani Mad And You’re Iced Out of the Conversation
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is celebrating his first 100 days in office with some favorable poll numbers and national headlines touting his “unique star power.” Underneath it all, however, Hizzoner has demonstrated an established pattern of simply ignoring inconvenient groups that threaten to undermine the social media confection he and his administration have carefully curated for mass consumption.
New York City Home Care Workers Announce Hunger Strike on Mamdani’s Watch
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City home care workers announced on Wednesday they will start a hunger strike on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s watch beginning next week if promised City Council legislation ending mandatory round-the-clock shifts in the industry isn’t brought to the floor for a vote.
Rapacious RAB Looks to Torpedo 32BJ—Union Strike Vote Set For 4/15
By Steve Wishnia
Claiming that a potential rent freeze is an “existential threat” to the real-estate industry, the trade group negotiating with residential building-service workers is seeking a two-tier contract that would pay future workers 25% less—which 32BJ SEIU union President Manny Pastreich called “disappointing and insulting.”
‘We Want Him to Hear Us’: NYCHA Residents Call Out Mamdani
By Steve Wishnia
If Mayor Zohran Mamdani calls himself a socialist, then “NYCHA should not be an afterthought. We are 511,000 residents,” the Rev. Kevin McCall of the Brownsville-based Crisis Action Center told a group of about 50 protesters on E. 109th St. in East Harlem March 27.
Wrecking Ball Stalled in Chelsea; ‘We Will Win Again,’ Public Housing Tenants Declare
By Steve Wishnia
A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division has extended a temporary restraining order stopping the New York City Housing Authority from proceeding with its plan to demolish and privatize two Chelsea public-housing developments for at least seven weeks.