I am a movie buff, and find it humorous when life imitates art. A scene from “Sweet Home Alabama” comes to mind, and that’s when Melanie's former husband Jake meets her prospective husband …

The fine line between inflammatory rhetoric and sweet talk is best clarified by a fine labor contract. And a union stands tall with proud posture when it calls out the posturing of management. And …

Although I do not make new year’s resolutions, I do set goals. My goals this year are focused on the workers movement. If we are going to build on the momentum of the labor movement over the past …

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.” It's worse than that. Janis nailed the song, but Freedom Foundation owns the omen.   If this misnomer organization gets its way, …

More than two years after marijuana was legalized in New York State, only 27 businesses have been licensed. Yet Queens City Councilwoman Lynn Schulman supports cracking down on unlicensed shops. The …

New York City's "economy shows resilience,” says the Independent Budget Office (IBO), which "projects that the City will end 2024 with an additional $3.6 billion in surplus above the Mayor's Office …

One main reason for the recently successful Teamsters UPS strike threat and SAG-AFTRA and UAW strikes is union democracy. In November , I wrote about reasons for the surging labor movement. In these …

Last year, a former colleague and fellow NYPD historian gave me copies of the entire NYPD case file on the Charles Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping/murder that took place on March 1, 1932. Knowing I had …

Winston Churchill said, “History is written by victors.” At the Department of Correction, the same applies. The federal monitor’s reports submitted to Federal District Judge Laura Taylor Swain …

There is more to be learned about algae by watching a suckermouth Plecostomus adhering to the glass of one's home aquarium than we are taught by example about principles of constitutional law adhered …

By now, many New Yorkers have heard about the November bum of the month. Stuart Seldowitz is the lowlife who harassed, over a four-day period, a singularly hard-working and decent American citizen, …

One of my unions’ current CBA has a new form of compensation for excess workload . This new language recognizes that faculty, counselors, librarians and coaches are performing unwaged labor …

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Leaders must "think out of the box,” which may require mismanagement of human capital and its …

Many of the comforting little certainties of everyday life that we could heretofore take for granted are being questioned and rent asunder. But one outpost of stability remains: every diner in the …

To date, two New York City mayors have left office in disgrace. If newspaper accounts are accurate, a third may soon follow.  The first mayor was Jimmy Walker, a witty, dapper dan who served …

Columnist S. E. Cupp has written of cases where Democrats encourage Republicans to nominate Trump-supporting candidates believing they are easier to defeat. We see the consequences of this when they …

After 40 years, the labor movement is back. The large strikes this past year by the SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America, the United Auto Workers, Kaiser Permanente unions, Los Angeles hotel …

Now that the sanitation workers have reached an agreement with the city, this contract round is nearly over, and it’s time for an assessment. In most ways, the round followed the blueprint crafted …

During the early rule of the Roman Empire, Pyrrhus of Epirus won a decisive battle against the Roman Army although the victory also significantly destroyed his own forces, thereby ending his military …

I recently saw a large, colorful poster on the subway platform that is part of a recent advertising campaign promoting New York City. The sign read, “We Love That Hate Is Never Ever Tolerated,” …

A "salt" in the workplace is the salt of the earth.  Not the condiment, but the union activists. These so-called "salts" are righteous deceivers who apply for jobs, not for the purposes stated …

The victorious six week UAW strike shows why strategy is half the fight. It’s the polar opposite of the lack of strategy of my union, the California Faculty Association, I wrote about in my last …

Are political dynasties the fruit of the loom of hard work or the fruit of the loin of families who have passed the baton of leadership from kin to kin out of devotion for public …

The NYC Correction Department cannot discipline its way out of this penal quagmire that is the result of a nine-year maelstrom of political failures and ineffective jail policies and the next DOC …

The Department of Education is forever doubling down on its professed advocacy for schoolchildren, especially when its idealism is belied by actual policies that contradict it. They fervently tout …