Editor’s Note: This is Part I of Phil’s two-part story about a community of Montagnard tribesmen who fought alongside US Special Forces in the Vietnam War, were abandoned for 20 years, and ultimately allowed to immigrate to Greensboro, North Carolina many years later. That’s where Phil met them working at a Kmart warehouse and started organizing.

Montagnards were an ethnic minority of ancient warrior-tribes living in the central highlands of Vietnam, who considered themselves a separate nation with their own languages and religion. Having suffered a long history of persecution by the Vietnamese, they were recruited during the 1960s by American Special Forces to engage a common enemy. The Montagnards’ warlike upbringing and intimate knowledge of local terrain made them invaluable assets and the military guaranteed their protection regardless of the war’s outcome. They were dramatized in a somewhat exaggerated fashion by the movie Apocalypse Now.

By Joe Maniscalco

Amazon Labor Union co-founder Chris Smalls on Saturday called for a national day of action against both the AFL-CIO and the International Longshoremen’s Association [ILA] to protest what Smalls said is their complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

By Joe Maniscalco

On the latest episode of WBAI’S Labor and Healthcare Confidential, Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics & Fire Inspectors FDNY Local 2507 President Oren Barzilay asserted—quite modestly—that the dangers his members face on the job are “just as high as the other [uniformed] professions” in New York City. Oren was being diplomatic, even understating the case.

By Joe Maniscalco

Last month, elderly residents at NYCHA’s Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan began receiving notices telling them they have 90-days to vacate their homes. But most aren’t going anywhere—instead, they’re staying put and fighting back against the massive privatization plan their neighbors say has “literally choked off the voices of the people who are most affected.”

By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of We Decide: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan Pacifica’s Rev. Billy and Savitri D. sit down with Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement [AIM] leader who was prosecuted for the 1975 shootout on a South Dakota reservation that left two FBI agents dead. Peltier spent a half‑century in federal prison and has always maintained he was wrongfully convicted.

Editor’s Note: This piece from the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee is republished here courtesy of the author.

By Bill Barry

To err is human, to be a union organizer is to make mistakes. We all do it, so don’t sweat it. Here are some tips to try to avoid the next one.

By Bob Hennelly

Throughout our region, Canadian wildfire smoke continues to degrade our ambient air quality. Health officials warn the fine particulates could irritate the eyes, nose and throat, causing respiratory and coronary distress particularly for those with pre-existing conditions. 

By Joe Maniscalco

A strange case of “inertia” continues to grip the New York City Council this week where Intro. 1096—the bill aimed at shielding retiree healthcare from being diminished in the event of what Mayor Eric Adams calls “evolving conditions”—continues to languish.

Editor’s Note: In this open letter to Council Member Erik Bottcher, Save Chelsea—a grassroots organization opposing NYCHA’s plan to sell off and demolish the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in the name of “redevelopment”—urge the council member to oppose the project. 

Dear City Council Member Bottcher:

Save Chelsea strongly opposes NYCHA’s plan for the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses (FEC). Its midtown-like density and grotesquely out-of-scale towers would be ruinous for Chelsea’s character, and environmentally disastrous.

By Time Sheard & Len Shinel

We often hear that working class folks in conservative communities are hopelessly drawn to the dominant storylines of the wealthy and powerful. That they don’t want to know about labor or “people’s” history.

By Steve Wishnia

In a ruling the American Federation of Government Employees [AFGE] denounced as “a setback for fundamental rights in America,” a federal appeals court in California on August 1 lifted an injunction preventing the Trump regime from terminating collective-bargaining rights for an estimated two-thirds of the federal workforce.

By Joe Maniscalco

A few weeks ago, Work-Bites took a look at the white paper warning labor leaders about profit-driven Medicare Advantage plans and how they are just “another Wall Street privatization scheme of raiding public funds for private profit.”

By Steve Wishnia

Eight state labor federations, including the Texas and New York branches of the AFL-CIO, have joined together to protest President Donald Trump’s push to have Texas gerrymander its congressional districts to enable Republicans to gain five seats in the 2026 elections.

By Bob Hennelly

The New York Times is reporting major news organizations around the world calling on Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza and on the movement of reporters in and out of Gaza as Palestinian journalists struggle for the basics to survive.

By Joe Maniscalco

New Yorkers increasingly outraged at the “deliberate” and “systemic” starvation of Palestinian families in Gaza—and the U.S. role in perpetuating the slaughter—shut down traffic at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn on Sunday, resulting in the arrest of 17 refusing to abandon the protest.

By Joe Maniscalco

Branded as Enemy Number One by an entire political establishment who’d like to cancel him as an existential threat to the high-holy church of American capitalism, while also fending off wild claims of being anti-cop, anti-Semetic, anti-Hindu, you name it—mayoral frontrunner Member Zohran Mamdani does have a lot on his plate.

By Joe Maniscalco

Instead of allowing the gutting of Medicare and Medicaid, as the latest GOP budget bill does, angry New Yorkers took to the streets of lower Manhattan on Wednesday July 30, in an effort to rally support for passage of the NY Health Act.

By Joe Maniscalco

Amazon Labor Union co-founder Chris Smalls is expected to be coming home to Newark International Airport tomorrow morning after reportedly being seized and beaten by Israeli military forces while taking part in a humanitarian effort to bring baby formula and other aide to the starving people of Gaza.

By Joe Maniscalco

The secretary-treasurer of IBT Local 808 in New York is calling on his union leadership to press for the release of Amazon Labor Union co-founder Christian Smalls after Smalls was reportedly seized and beaten by Israeli military forces this week while helping to bring food and other aide to the starving people of Gaza.