Work-Bites

One of the first things Donald Trump did when he came into office in January was fire National Labor Relations Board member Gwynn Wilcox, thereby depriving the NLRB the three-member quorum it needs to function.

Dear Council Member,

This Summer, the severity of the Emergency Medical Services staffing problem, as it is part of the FDNY, was clearly demonstrated. As temperatures in the city hovered near 100°F in June, the Mayor declared a Heat Emergency. During it, the average citywide ambulance response time to life-threatening medical emergencies climbed to 12 minutes and 19 seconds, the highest since March 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic.

By Joe Maniscalco

If New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher [D-3rd District] was home this weekend when outraged NYCHA public housing tenants came calling, he couldn’t have been very happy.

By Bob Hennelly

In the days after the 9/11 attack, the US EPA lied and said the air was safe to breathe in lower Manhattan. 24 years later, more people have now died from the toxic air in lower Manhattan than the 3,000 that died as a result of the attack.

By Joe Maniscalco

When public housing residents living in the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses marched in this year’s New York City Labor Day Parade to highlight the impending destruction of their homes, IBT Local 808 Secretary-Treasurer Chris Silvera and other members of his local marched with them.

By Harry Weiner

Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is a member of the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations [COMRO] and a frequent commenter on Work-Bites stories.

The [New York City] Office of Labor Relations ensures that the contract procurement process is impartial. Evaluation committee members are selected who are free of conflicts of interest. Members must sign a conflicts of interest/nondisclosure form affirming that no conflict of interest exists and to divulge any circumstances that may create an actual or apparent conflict of interest. A reasonable standard.

By Joe Maniscalco

A couple of very important things came out of Community Board 4's Sept. 3 meeting in which members officially rejected NYCHA’s plan to turn over the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses to private developers for demolition and reconstruction. 

By Robert Hennelly

Over 100,000 union members from 200 unions and their supporters marched up Fifth Ave. on Sept. 6 in the annual New York City Central Labor Council Labor Day Parade that took on additional significance this year because it comes as the Trump regime is trying to strip away the collective bargaining  rights of one million federal workers.

By Joe Maniscalco

It’s an inconvenient truth that Mayor Eric Adams, NYCHA, and the big money developers hoping to level the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses on the lower west side of Manhattan do not want to acknowledge—but the majority of residents actually living in the public housing complex does not support the plan.

By Joe Maniscalco

Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District] announced today that he wants to succeed Adrienne Adams as head of the New York City Council—but Marte doesn’t just want to be the next Speaker, he wants to free the entire legislative body from the corrosive grip of autocratic rule presently subverting the will of New Yorkers. 

By Steve Wishnia

Most of the city’s ten worst labor-law violators listed by Comptroller Brad Lander’s office Sept. 3 come from typical categories of low-wage employers: tech giants Amazon and DoorDash, nonunion construction contractors, and home health-care agencies and nursing homes.

By Bob Hennelly

This past week,  as part of the National "Workers Over Billionaires" Labor Day of Action, thousands of New York restaurant workers and their supporters marched on Trump Tower.

We speak with Brendan Griffith, the new president of the NYC Central Labor Council, which represents 300 unions and more than one million workers. Brendan describes how unionized workers make significantly more than non-union workers, as well as enjoy a safer workplace.

By Joe Maniscalco

Unbelievable. Terrible. Awful.

Those where just some of the choice words New York City municipal retirees rallying on the City Hall steps Tuesday used to describe the City Council’s steadfast refusal to protect them from predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance.

By Joe Maniscalco

In this Work-Bites video, New York City Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District] urges Mayor Eric Adams to push passage of Intro. 1096 into law. At 65, Hizzoner looks good, Marte says, but we never know what can happen to any of us tomorrow.

By Joe Maniscalco

Sixty-two years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I have dream speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On Thursday’s more modest March on Wall Street in NYC, the message on the streets was, “We better wake up.”

By Joe Maniscalco

Last fall, New York City Mayor Eric Adams proudly announced the “next phase of work” at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan saying his administration and private developers were “rewriting the future of public housing across New York City.”

By Bob Hennelly

A steady rain in Times Square this past Wednesday couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of hundreds of union activists who gathered to welcome the national AFL-CIO’s “It’s Better in a Union” bus tour. The high profile rally to support the LIVE Broadway heavily unionized workforce came as union negotiators prepare to take on the powerful Broadway League in what is expected to be tough bargaining.

By Joe Maniscalco

Imagine you’re a farmworker in 2025. You make the food on tables across the United States possible. Five years ago because of the pandemic, people even began acknowledging the essential work you do. It felt good for a second, even hopeful, after decades of being left out of the conversation around worker rights. 

By Joe Maniscalco

Restaurant worker turned working class organizer Hannah Lopez has been able to help mobilize some 36 different organizations in the campaign to strengthen New York City’s Earned Sick & Safe Time Act [ESSTA].

By Steve Wishnia 

A Senate bill to regulate employers’ use of software to monitor workers and algorithms to evaluate them and set their pay has won support from unions representing app-based workers, despite its apparently slim chances of passage.