By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of “What’s Going On?” we hear Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants CWA, and Jimmy Williams Jr., general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades tell a packed midtown labor forum last Friday that it is time for the union movement to build on the momentum from Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s seismic win.

By Steve Wishnia

The new cleaning contractor at two recently sold Manhattan office buildings is cutting workers’ pay by almost 30% and eliminating their health-insurance coverage, according to the SEIU 32BJ union.

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Housing Authority does not yet have the green light it needs to go ahead with plans to demolish the Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea public houses on Manhattan’s west side, but tenants say that hasn’t stopped them from telling residents the buildings are coming down and they have to go.

By Bob Hennelly

The lopsided success of the House discharge petition calling for the release of the Epstein files may be grabbing all the headlines—but there’s a second more obscure discharge petition calling for the restoration of federal workers’ union rights that is also a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump and his efforts to strip one million federal workers of their rights.

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Housing Authority’s scorched earth campaign to get rid of Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] tenants refusing to leave their homes on Manhattan’ west side entered an even uglier phase this past week, but a Civil Court Judge’s ruling on Friday is giving residents at least some hope.

Work-Bites

Editor’s Note: Striking Starbucks baristas kicking off the “Red Cup Rebellion” in Brooklyn on Nov. 13 had a lot to say about their struggle against CEO Brian Niccol. But they also had plenty to say about the struggle all workers are engaged in, too. Here’s barista Rey Saho on the subject. 

The only reason we have fair work week protections here is because fast food and retail workers in this city organized and fought for it. Throughout history the capitalist class has never given us anything.

By Joe Maniscalco

Starbucks baristas launched their “Red Cup Rebellion” this past week in more than 40 cities across the country promising to escalate the walkout until it becomes the “largest, longest strike in company history.”

By Bob Hennelly

For the second week, hundreds of nurses, elected officials and community members turned out to rally in front of Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn and at Mt. Sinai in Upper Manhattan to protest the private hospitals opting to spend vast sums on CEO pay and AI while at the same time cutting nurse staffing.

By Joe Maniscalco

Outgoing FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker on Thursday downplayed the significance of increasing emergency response times across New York City saying that his department is purposely “elevating” the alarming figures.

By Bob Hennelly

Kai Fritz, elected captain for the first Starbucks store to unionize in Brooklyn, explains why Starbucks Workers United union will be holding a strike rally TODAY at 4 p.m. at the company's 325 Lafayette Ave. Brooklyn location to demand a fair contract. 

By Steve Wishnia

The Trump administration violated furloughed federal workers’ free-speech rights during the shutdown when it changed their automated out-of-office email replies to blame “Democrat Senators,” a federal judge in Washington ruled Nov. 7.

By Bob Hennelly

This will be the first Monday that Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani gets to set the media agenda for the city he has yet to officially lead. Indeed the whole world will be watching with the kind of fascination and hope it had when a very young President-Elect John Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic to be elected to the office, prepared to assume it.

By Joe Maniscalco

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in on Jan. 1 2026, but New York City public housing tenants currently being forced out of their homes in Chelsea want the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist to know that he has an “urban genocide” happening on his hands right now.

By Joe Maniscalco

Just launched this fall, the State University of New York’s Reconnect program is providing residents with an opportunity to change course or add a whole new chapter to their working lives with an Associate’s Degree in more than 120 different areas of study.

And the cost? It’s free.

By Steve Wishnia

Tenants in three Chelsea public housing buildings slated to be demolished argued Nov. 5 for a court order to stop the New York City Housing Authority [NYCHA] from trying to evict them or pressuring them to sign new leases accepting relocation.

By Joe Maniscalco

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani declared victory on Tuesday night promising working class New Yorkers a “bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.”

By Carol Lang and Steve Zeltzer

Editor’s Note: Carol Lang is a CUNY Professor and PSC Delagate and Steve Zeltzer is the producer and host of the WorkWeek Radio program.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten attempts to provide an understanding of the ever increasing problem of Why Fascists Fear Teachers, but, in my opinion, fails miserably. Her book provides no solution that will meet the immediate crisis because she is unable to understand the crisis from a class perspective.

Editor’s Note: The following is a response to Marianne Pizzitola’s open letter to mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani which was published here on Oct. 27.

The article “An Open Letter to Zohran Mamdani: Why Are You Ignoring NYC Retirees?,” written by Marianne Pizzitola and published in the October 27 issue of Work-Bites, is a distorted publicity attempt to help elect disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo.

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Housing Authority stepped up its efforts to clear out the elderly residents living in the Chelsea Addition in Manhattan this week, forcibly attempting to relocate one resident against her will, according to reports and flatly telling everyone there that their building “will be demolished.”