Work News | THE CITY

A protester waves flags at the pro-Palestinian encampment at City College

CUNY Faculty Stage Illegal May Day Strike As Criticism Mounts Over Campus Protest Response

by Claudia Irizarry Aponte May 1, 2024, 4:33 p.m.May 1, 2024, 11:18 p.m.

Work stoppages are illegal for New York public servants, but 250-plus professors signed a pledge to not work on Wednesday in support of students pressing demands to “divest from all companies complicit in the imperialist-zionist genocide.”

Work

Labor Pains: MTA Brass Hears From Pregnant Bus Drivers Suing for Work Accommodations

by Jose Martinez April 30, 2024, 3:42 p.m.April 30, 2024, 3:42 p.m.

Bus operators with rapidly approaching due dates took to the transit agency’s monthly hearing to make their voices heard amid stress and financial uncertainty.

A Harlem market advertises selling HotHead Grabba.

Labor

Migrant Men Allege ‘Grabba’ Sweatshop Stole Their Earnings in New Complaint

by Claudia Irizarry Aponte April 23, 2024, 5:01 a.m.April 22, 2024, 6:23 p.m.

Weeks after THE CITY exposed a Brooklyn sweatshop where women say they got sick processing tobacco sold in local smoke shops, two former workers at a Queens HotHead Grabba factory filed wage theft complaints with the state.

The commercial space in Brooklyn used to process tobacco sold in area smoke shops. Feb. 28, 2024.

Work

Brooklyn Tobacco Factory Hit With Worker Safety Probes by Federal and State Agencies

by Claudia Irizarry Aponte March 12, 2024, 4:55 a.m.March 25, 2024, 4:49 p.m.

Complaints at HotHead Grabba exposed by THE CITY lead to Occupational Health and Safety Administration and state Department of Labor investigations. Workers allege they are getting sick working 13-hour days for subminimum pay.

Labor

Medicare Advantage Feud Looms Over Union Takeover of City Retiree Group

by Reuven Blau Feb. 26, 2024, 3:55 p.m.Feb. 26, 2024, 3:59 p.m.

AFSCME seizes control of DC37 Retirees Association, a leader in lawsuits seeking to block the cost-cutting health plan.

The Bronx

12 Hours in Concourse and Highbridge

by Ben Fractenberg and Jonathan Custodio Feb. 26, 2024, 5:00 a.m.Feb. 26, 2024, 6:44 a.m.

Many service workers who rely on public transit to get to work live in these southwest Bronx neighborhoods. New affordable developments in the area are designed to keep rents reasonable for those who help feed and provide for New Yorkers across the five boroughs.

Building trades union members held a vigil after construction worker Raúl Tenelema Puli’s was crushed by a scaffold at a Downtown Brooklyn development.

Labor

NYC Construction Death Toll Hit 24 in ’22, New Report Finds

by Claudia Irizarry Aponte Feb. 13, 2024, 11:00 a.m.Feb. 13, 2024, 11:26 a.m.

Non-union workers remain most at risk of fatal falls, collapses and other calamities, while safety enforcement staffing lags.

Impact Update

Heat Relief

by THE CITY Jan. 10, 2024, 1:25 p.m.Jan. 11, 2024, 10:38 a.m.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2024 State of the State policy agenda includes a pledge to direct the state Department of Labor to develop gudiance for how employers can help protect workers from extreme heat on the job. Hochul’s agenda cites a statistical finding developed by THE CITY: “When the temperature hits 85 degrees, workers in the City are 7% more likely to be injured on the job. At 95 degrees, this percentage goes up to 8%.”