As part of the settlement of President Donald Trump's successful lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for having publicly released his family's tax returns, the Attorney General, last May, created a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization...
That slogan is associated with leftist zealots and social justice combatants, usually in unflattering and unwarranted contexts. Many of them feel that we are living in, and making excuses for, an economic caste system that belies the principles of...
Even as The Chief continues its editorial transition from its old slogan, “New York’s Civil Service Newspaper” to its new one, “A Voice for Workers,” I suspect that most of its readers – that’s you! – are still members of public employee...
When Donald Trump first ran for President, he promised to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants, claiming he would start by targeting "criminals" who were "stealing jobs from U.S. citizens." Others have long echoed the narrative that immigrants are unfairly flooding the country due to "open borders." These claims are dangerous myths.
The sight of homeless or emotionally disturbed people, sometimes flea-bitten, smelly and irascible, stretched out over multiple seats in a subway car may be aesthetically repellant, an unwanted curiosity for tourists and a tip-off to probably fare...
New York City is at a critical crossroads in its emergency response system. That's a polite way of saying it may collapse this summer. While City Council voices (notably Speaker Julie Menin and Fire Emergency Management Chair Joann...
On this carceral chessboard known as Rikers Island, correction officers are sacrificial pawns. They routinely work in precarious environments where departmental charges, suspensions, terminations and indictments loom like a swarm of drones while...
Some people have charity in their hearts. Others have the spoils of charity in their secure Swiss or offshore bank accounts. Charities are all the rage among get-rich schemers. They are very popular amongst scammers who exploit others' empathy...
The New York State budget is over a month late, violating the state's own constitution. This is governmental malpractice plain and simple. Policymakers entrusted to administer the state's business at every level have failed all...
It’s EMS Week again in New York City. There will be proclamations. Photo ops. Social media graphics thanking “New York’s Bravest.” Politicians shaking hands beside ambulances they’ve never ridden in. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, a 911 caller will wait twelve minutes for help that should have arrived in six...
Let's pretend we are indeed a society of laws, that punishments fit the crimes, and there is a rational procedure for determination of guilt that doesn't allow for springing loose or throwing the book at the defendant based on race,...
Earlier this year I learned about the abusive conditions facing home health aide workers forced to labor 24-hour shifts – without full pay – at the...
This week, President Trump is painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool swimming pool blue. That’s the penny-ante version of the American war on Iran – both forbidden without Congressional authorization. Of course, Trump also thumbed his nose...
Building Unions — From the Grassroots Part 2: Today, unions are under attack by well-funded anti-labor organizations and union-busting management. For too long, many unions became complacent, forgetting that our movement was born from the grassroots. To survive and rebuild, it is imperative that we return to organizing
Can Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards effectively lead the NYC Correction Department, an agency in crisis and in desperate need of immediate problem-solving triage, while simultaneously condemning Rikers Island jails and asserting they’re...
Never underestimate the power of a feather. If the angle is right, a light swipe across the facade could bowl over Mount Rushmore. Highly unlikely. But less so than the chance of Meta suffering any long-term damage after having recently...
Food service workers are the backbone of New York. The work they do gets us through our days, provides some of our best moments, and carries us through some of our worst...
Make no mistake: unions, their members, and the public we serve are under attack. Actions by the Trump administration and Congress, outlined in their “Project 2025” blueprint, signal an effort to expand the power of the billionaire class at our...
In view of Germany's recent history, and having committed in living memory the most massive and sadistic true genocide in world history, the slaughter of more than a third of the world's Jews, you'd think they'd opt out of indulging in the...
Billionaires and their enablers are aghast at what they guarantee would be the dire consequences of the City Council's bill that proposes the raising of the hourly minimum wage for employees of small businesses to 30 dollars in 2032.
Unions Sometime?… Or Union Now! In the early 1930s, the American labor movement was in desperate shape. Union membership, as a percentage of the workforce, had fallen from just about 20% at the end of World War I in 1919 to about half of...
As a unionized city hospital doctor, I know the physical toll of shift work. I’ve pulled my share of 24-hour shifts. Like many readers of The Chief, I’ve felt the fog and disorientation at 4 a.m. as an essential worker serving New...
Are Mayor Mamdani's professed core values his actual deeply felt and firm convictions? When expressing them for public consumption, should they be crafted with more finesse and ambiguity, since many of his views are divisive and...
As the earth spins toward the east it gives the illusion that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The sunrise and sunset are enthralling and captivating, yet still misleading optical illusions like the hope for safety and success in...
If the right to representative government and trial by jury are, according to John Adams, the "heart and lungs of liberty", then the UK, and possibly soon the US, are desperately in need of cardiopulmonary intervention. Our schism-scarred...