By Joe Maniscalco

Fed up New York City home care workers ripped off to the tune of more than $25 million called on state Labor Department employees today to “defy” Governor Kathy Hochul and properly enforce existing labor law mandating restitution for wage theft victims. 

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.

By Steve Wishnia

January 29 was a day of celebration for three large groups of New York City workers: security guards, app-cab drivers, and street vendors. The City Council, overwhelmingly overriding former mayor Eric Adams’ vetoes of 17 bills, passed measures with major new protections for them.

By Joe Maniscalco

“Any one of us can be Alex.”

Veterans Affairs ICU Nurse Alex Pretti’s final moment on earth before being shot to death by a heavily-armed mob of federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis on Jan. 24 was on the minds of many in New York City last night.

By Steve Wishnia

I wrote this article for the Alternet website in 2008. I’d known and been proud of my grandparents being immigrants since I was a kid, but I’d only recently learned about how my grandfathers arrived here. It was also the first in-depth piece I’d done on labor issues, which was the logical way to connect their stories to the present.

By Bob Hennelly

The murder by the US Border Patrol in Minneapolis of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a Veterans Administration ICU nurse on Saturday continues to spark international outrage. Pretti, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, was coming to the aid of a woman being pushed to the ground by the Border Patrol. Pretti was a licensed gun owner and had a permit to carry his gun which multiple videos show remained holstered until he was tackled and swarmed by federal agents who took his gun and shot Pretti multiple times.

By Eilean Faltin

Federal forces are marauding across American cities, widely despised billionaires are flagrantly committing omnicide, and 60-70 million full-time U.S. employees do not make a living wage.

For many younger people, the necessity and the urgency of mass revolutionary action could not be any clearer. Yet, U.S. union membership remains at an all-time low of 9.9%, raising the questions of whether or not a wider general strike like the one seen in Minneapolis last week can be organized without militant labor leadership.

By Joe Maniscalco

Working class New Yorkers incensed over the grisly murder of 37-year-old Veterans Affairs ICU nurse and trade unionist Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis this past weekend are vowing to give Senate Democratic Caucus boss Chuck Schumer and other feckless Dems in Congress “hell” this week for their ongoing failure to confront out-of-control ICE agents.

Editor’s Note: An emergency protest was announced for Saturday, Jan. 24 at Union Square starting at 4 p.m. just prior to publication of this story after federal agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis believed to be a US citizen.

By Steve Wishnia

With the damp chill of a looming blizzard blowing in from the south, hundreds of New Yorkers flowed up the subway stairs at Union Square on January 23 like a fountain of humans wearing purple SEIU gear or bearing red “NO ICE” signs.

By Joe Maniscalco

No one really knows what impact Friday’s “Day of Truth and Freedom” in Minnesota will have on the state and the rest of the nation when workers there put down their tools, students stay home from school, and everybody stops shopping.

By Joe Maniscalco

The ongoing nurses strike may be the largest in New York City history, but there’s nothing unprecedented about the way the hospital bosses at Mount Sinai, New York-Presbyterian, and Montefiore are responding to their unionized workforce’s essential demands.

War Stories By Phil Cohen

One of the labor movement’s most essential obligations is enforcing health and safety regulations. Factories, warehouses and other industrial facilities are inherently dangerous environments, compounded by management deliberately ignoring serious hazards to avoid repair costs. Ironically this is one of the least important issues for many workers who trust in their luck, focusing instead on wages, benefits and plant rules.

By Bob Hennelly

Here in New York City, thousands of nurses with the New York State Nurses Association remain on strike at New York Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West to maintain their healthcare benefits, safe staffing for patient care as well as secure improved protections against a spike in workplace violence.

By Steve Wishnia

With the impending expiration of a stipulation that the New York City Housing Authority won’t begin demolishing two Chelsea public-housing developments, another tenant challenge to the plan is wending its way through the courts.

By Steve Wishnia

The hundreds of striking nurses picketing outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital January 12 were loud. Their chants, cheers, and shouts resounded under the three-level bridgeway connecting the hospital’s buildings. But they weren’t talking about money.

By Joe Maniscalco

Sunday’s massive march south on 5th Avenue in response to the ICE execution of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis took protesters right past Trump Tower and provided many with the opportunity to express their anger and disgust towards the current administration in patented NYC style.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul continues to block resumption of a sweeping wage theft probe into the home care industry this week despite a new ruling in favor of home care workers demanding action.

By Steve Wishnia

Compelled by a snuff-video clip that went viral on social media on the afternoon of January 7, several hundred people converged on Foley Square that evening for an emergency rally to protest the killing depicted in said video: An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shooting 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis that morning.

“I’m outraged. I didn’t know what to do. I came after work,”said John Grauwiler, a teacher from Astoria.

By Joe Maniscalco

Tristan Castillo’s job as an Emergency Room nurse is unquestionably more stressful than whatever the heads of Mount Sinai, NewYork-Presbyterian, and Montefiore private hospital chains do all day long. Unlike those lavishly-paid executives, however, Castillo goes to bed at night worrying about making ends meet and if being short-staffed meant the welfare of a patient was put at risk during her last shift.