Fate, the prime mover of history, works in mysterious ways, has a plan for everybody, a penchant for grotesque humor and a relish for disrespecting human pretensions and pricking the cast-iron bubbles of our conceit. It's got a raucous laugh that...
The author writes in response to "Pattern bargaining wasn’t intended to be a straitjacket – here’s how we fix it" by Alan Klinger, Dina Kolker and Alexander Langer. Alan Klinger said pattern bargaining should not be a straitjacket. In an opinion piece in the Oct. 9 edition...
That was the provocative premise of a recent panel at CUNY’s School of Labor and Urban Studies that explored efforts of state and city governments and labor unions to improve the wages and working conditions of workers who are not legally...
In America, the average annual cost of operation for state prisons is $60,000 per incarcerated person, for federal penitentiaries it’s $45,000 and for local jails it’s $47,000. However, in NYC it costs taxpayers more than $550,000 per incarcerated person...
Three times last month I witnessed the abuse that restaurant staff routinely must endure from customers. Some offenders are inspired by social media, which has graduated from its former viral instigations of subway surfing and choking competitions for kids. Waiters are especially easy targets...
A YouTuber named Sean Reyes, known as the Long Island Auditor, has over 1 million subscribers. His shtick is being bounced from public buildings. His underlying motives may be different from those he claims, but that doesn't matter, because his...
More than a century ago, the French social scientist Emil Durkheim viewed social institutions as inextricably linked and interdependent, like the organs of higher order living creatures. It's obvious that we are now in at least the early...
Labor relations in New York City between the city and its public-sector workforce are widely regarded as the most complex of any in the nation, with some 100 public sector unions bargaining with the City over the terms and conditions of employment...
Even if you don’t know what “just cause” means, if you are in a union, you likely benefit from it every day you are on the job. It’s a shield against all sorts of management abuse and even the sort of routinized harassment that so many supervisors...
The bureaucracy leading the NYC Department of Correction appears to be a comedy of errors, but nobody’s laughing. Rather, like a 16th-century tragic play the agency has experienced a catastrophic downfall over the last 11 years. It has been...
Are you a legacy Democrat, Democratic Socialist, Republican, libertarian, Marxist, progressive, conservative, fascist, all or none or a combination of them? Where do you fit in? Do you occupy an ideological niche? Are you mainline, a...
The author writes in regard to the proposed sharing of municipal worker pharmacy data with insurance companies as discussed in a Sept. 11 article in the The Chief: "Union calls out MLC for 'veiled threat' over worker health data sharing." The vast...
I detest much, though not all, of what Mayor Zohran Mamdani stands for. His philosophy's bedrock is an obstacle to trust. But if he sticks with his "tax the rich" plans, provided wealth is fairly judged and defined, my loathing may be...
Disillusionment with corporate America doesn't have to be a terminal disease after all. Within its structure, there may be maverick human hearts with the moral mischief and wherewithal to break through the walls of profit-seeking absolutism and...
Mayor Mamdani, you know I am rooting for you to succeed in all ways. Your success creates a better, more equitable New York. Our success then sends signals to the rest of the country about what democratic socialism means in practice. You’re doing well on your affordability agenda – rent freeze, the start of childcare expansion... But to do more, you have to do better by New York City public employees...
The Brad H v. City of New York lawsuit, known as “Brad H”, was a class action suit that challenged NYC’s practice of discharging individuals with mental health concerns from city jails without any psychiatric medication or treatment referrals. The...
When riches arise from humble beginnings, it may be the just reward for raw ambition and competitiveness, or fortuitous or random luck. The face value of phenomenal success is sufficient to impress most people without their inquiring further into...
Elections are won by who shows up to vote on Election Day and in New York, a lot of attention has been paid to the wins of ‘insurgent/left’ candidates over the Democratic ‘establishment’. The wins are undeniable and significant, even if they are...
For scientists in the United States, the past two years have been bleak. Federal attacks on research funding have destabilized laboratories, threatened careers, and cast uncertainty over the future of American science. But in New York, there is finally reason for optimism...
The waiting room was brightly lit with cheery wall motifs, decorations and knickknacks on the tables to relax patients awaiting their consultations with doctors specializing in life-limiting illnesses. Before technology-phobic patients could...
It has been a topsy-turvy summer in electoral politics for the labor-left in New York City. New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won big. Eight of nine of their endorsed insurgent candidates for the state office won. Even more...
"Nothing succeeds (or succumbs) like success." Consider the '311' system, which is hyper-touted by the city as a splendid innovation and triumph of futuristic efficiency. Its "success" shrinks away under scrutiny...
Sixty years ago this month, Martin Luther King Jr. began the Chicago Freedom Movement, marking a real shift in the nature of his work. Starting with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ending with Selma in 1965, King had worked primarily to win...
To end the NYC jail crisis, newly appointed remediation manager Nick Deml must take swift and bold action to regain control of Rikers Island jails and establish order, or the Department of Correction will remain locked in a cycle of lawlessness,...
No, it is not necessarily, though it might be, bias against immigrants, Somalis, people of color and combative social justice lobbyists, to want to get to the bottom of allegations, wherever they lead, regarding the apocryphal giant fraud in...
