The Chief

10/01/2025

Despite misgivings, public-sector unions green-light controversial new municipal health plan.

Despite doubt among some labor leaders who said they had too little information to make an informed decision, unions representing municipal workers have signed off on a cost-saving health-benefit agreement city and union officials reached with two...

09/10/2025

In between leaders, Municipal Labor Committee considers new, cost-saving health plan.

Later this month, the umbrella organization of the city’s public-sector unions, the Municipal Labor Committee, will vote on a proposed cost-saving municipal health plan negotiated by city and union officials with two major insurance...

09/03/2025

At a meeting on Sept. 11, NYCERS' board will reconsider a January change to its disability benefit policy that eliminated the ability to appeal a denial of benefits.

This comes weeks after The Chief first reported on the change.

Top officials at New York City’s largest public pension fund told an advocate for 9/11 first responders that the fund’s board of trustees will reconsider a policy change made in January that eliminated retirees’ ability to appeal...

09/03/2025

Foreign born workers in New York City are more likely to be union members than workers born in the United States, according to a report published in August by CUNY scholars Ruth Milkman and Joseph van der Naald. The report, The State of The Unions...

08/29/2025

NYCERS leadership will reconsider a policy put in place in January that eliminated retirees’ ability to appeal their denials for disability benefits in a meeting on Sept. 11, an advocate for 9/11 first responders said he was told by top officials at the public pension fund earlier this month.

Top officials at New York City’s largest public pension fund told an advocate for 9/11 first responders that the fund’s board of trustees will reconsider a policy change made in January that eliminated retirees’ ability to appeal...

08/21/2025

The Professional Staff Congress/CUNY is demanding that The City University of New York address the ‘perennial’ problem of delayed payments to adjunct lecturers and professors, who teach the majority of classes.

The head of the faculty and staff union at the City University of New York has called on Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez to immediately address what he described as the chronic problem of adjunct professors receiving their paychecks late at the...

08/15/2025

Our story on city lifeguards' claims of reprisals from their union is featured on today's Spectrum News NY1's "In the Papers" segment. Pat Kiernan introduces the story 2 minutes in.

A look at what's making headlines in the NYC papers.

08/13/2025

'It’s a travesty, it’s un-American. It’s disgusting, it’s despicable.'
Unions rip Trump administration's cancellation of CBAs at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Union leaders are lambasting the Department of Veterans Affairs’ cancellation of most VA employees’ collective bargaining agreements as inherently un-American and a reflection of the administration’s anti-union agenda. Nearly 400,000 workers at...

08/11/2025

21,760 people took the open competitive exam to become an FDNY firefighter this year. That's less than half of the number who took it in 2017, when the exam was last offered.

6.5% of test takers this year are women - a record high.

Fewer than 22,000 people took the open competitive exam to become anFDNY firefighter this year despite the department sinking $3 million into a recruitment campaign, pushing back the registration timeline and adding more testing dates, according...

08/06/2025

NYCERS, NYC's largest public pension fund, in January eliminated retirees' right to appeal if their application for disability benefits is rejected.

Retirees - including those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses - now have to wait a full year to reapply.

Bruce Hydock didn’t want to retire. By the time he hung up his gear for good, FDNY EMS Captain had already survived testicular cancer and lived with a degenerative lung disorder for more than a decade, both attributed to the time he spent at...

08/04/2025

New York City Council members, citing Mayor Eric Adams' ties to President Donald J. Trump, vow to override mayor's veto of legislation that would decriminalize some street-vendor offenses.

Mayor Eric Adams has vetoed a City Council bill aimed at decriminalizing certain street vending violations — a move that drew sharp criticism from vendor advocates and elected officials who say the measure is critical to protecting immigrant...

08/04/2025

‑born former NYPD detective now pens crime novels.

As a youngster growing up in Brooklyn, Anthony Celano received a priceless education that would serve him well as an NYPD member and, later, as a prolific author. Celano’s mother worked nights at Pfizer and his father, Enrico, worked days as a...