Results tagged “labor”

The city’s unemployment rate is at 10.3 percent, its highest level in 16 years, and the unemployment rate statewide reached 9 percent in October, the highest rate since April 1983, the State Labor Department reported yesterday. Making matters worse, the usual holiday hiring bump doesn't seem to be happening; instead, the retail sector shed 1,100 jobs in October. Leisure and hospitality, which usually picks up toward the end of the year, lost jobs last holiday season and is doing slightly worse so far this year. At this point, we'd ask for a stiff drink, but who's left to pour it? Yet there is a silver lining empty lining where some copper wire used to be!

Stella D'Oro, the local makers of cookies and breadsticks that you used to be able to take almost anywhere, has been sold and is leaving its longtime home up in the Bronx. Earlier this summer, workers of the Kingsbridge cookie factory were put on a roller coaster ride when a judge ruled in their favor of their yearlong strike only to be told by owners Brynwood Partners that the court's costly decision was prompting a shutting down of the factory. Workers demanded that Brynwood sell Stella D'Oro so that operations could continue and the company complied...only to have new owners Lance Inc inform them the new jobs would be about 500 miles west in Ohio. Following the news, the union released a statement saying, "We weren't wrong in what we did. What's wrong is that the law allows companies to sell off its business in order to avoid a judgment of the law." Well, at least 75 years of baking cookies and a hardfought labor battle aren't all for naught—Lance Inc says Stella D'Oro is "a perfect fit in with the niche brand strategy that we have."

The Atlantic Avenue exit of the BQE turned out to be the exit ramp used by one more passenger than was expected Thursday morning when a police officer ended up helping deliver a baby alongside the highway. 37-year-old Officer George Tsoukaris said he hasn't had to help out on a case like this since his rookie days on the NYPD. When Tsoukaris was flagged down Thursday around 11a.m. by a woman in labor and her husband intending to take the BQE out to a Staten Island hospital, he quickly discovered that there wasn't going to be enough time until an EMT arrived...or even time for him to put on gloves for that matter! The couple has chosen not to reveal themselves after taking their healthy newborn to Long Island College Hospital. But the News got the adorable story out of the cop, who says, "She was screaming at the top of her lungs. he's yelling, 'The baby's coming out, the baby's coming out!' ... It's one thing to see the miracle of life in a controlled environment like a hospital, but it's another thing to have it happen on the highway."

The move by Stella D'oro to close its Bronx bakery after a judge ordered its striking union workers reinstated is raising questions about the strength of unions in today's economy. With tough times all around, it seems unions are facing uphill battles to get public support. A NY Times story today on the strike's aftermath includes an interview with CUNY history professor Joshua B. Freeman, who notes, "A lot of people are hurting right now, and sometimes you look at someone else and they have a job and they’re resisting making a concession and you think, ‘These people seem to be sitting pretty, what are they complaining about?’" Indeed, the Stella D'oro strikers had a hard time even getting noticed—as the Daily News observes today, "news media virtually ignored the story of this largely immigrant workforce. In a town that prides itself as the heart of organized labor, the other unions were AWOL." While unions may be suffering in the economic climate, the workers appear to be bearing the brunt of this harsher labor environment. Stella D'oro worker Richard Pererira, 51, sums it up for the Times this way: "I feel cheated...All these years we worked so hard, and now they want to shut us down. That’s horrible."

In Manhattan federal court yesterday, a judge sentenced former Queens Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin to ten years in prison for taking in over $3 million in embezzlement, bribes from taxpayers and other illegal means. McLaughlin even stole $95,000 from a Queens Little League, promising voters that their donations meant that "A Child in Sports Stays Out of the Courts." Judge Richard Sullivan said that McLaughlin harkened back to the era of Boss Tweed and accused the former president of the nation’s largest municipal labor council of validating “the harshest critics of organized labor who accuse the leadership of corruption, and point to you as an example of that corruption.” Prosecutors had asked the judge for leniency, in part because of McLaughlin's cooperation in the recent indictment of another pol, Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio. At the sentencing, McLaughlin, who has entered into Alcoholics Anonymous in recent years, said, "I'd like to say I make no excuses for it. But over the past three, 3-1/2 years I've had the opportunity to live the way I'd like to live my life."

While Elizabeth Brew managed to hold out until her husband parked outside of Mount Sinai Hospital on Fifth Avenue, the twin babies she was pregnant with couldn't any longer. So she went into labor in the SUV. Luckily nurse manager Lucille Nassery, inside the hospial, has good ears—"There's a certain kind of sound that comes from women who are about to deliver. It's not just a typical scream. It's a whole-body scream"—and brought a team of doctors and nurses outside. The AP reports that Brew's "legs extended toward busy Fifth Avenue and Central Park - the hospital staff brought equipment into the middle of the street. Nassery and other staffers used their bodies to block off two lanes of traffic." The Post has video showing the scene, too. Interested drivers and passengers from other cars inquired about the mother's health and cheered when a 4 pound, 13 ounce baby girl was born in the middle of Fifth. A few minutes later, her twin brother, 5 pounds, 5 ounces, arrived. The babies are healthy; but since they are preemies, they will stay in neonatal intensive care while their mother is recovering in a hospital room. Three cheers for the babies, the mom and the hospital team!

A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled yesterday that Starbucks engaged in unfair labor practices at several of its New York coffee shops, the Associated Press reports. The decision is the culmination of a lengthy trial which began in March 2006 when the Industrial Workers of the World filed charges against the company, accusing managers of interrogating employees and firing workers who supported the union.

The state Department of Labor closed a garment factory yesterday, citing sweatshop conditions. Jin Shun manufactured clothing for The Gap, Macy's, Banana Republic, The Limited, Victoria's Secret and more in a factory, and officials say mostly Chinese immigrants were working "66-hour, six-day weeks" for $250/week, cheating them out of $5.3 million. Jin Shun allegedly coached workers to lie about their working conditions at the Long Island City factory and made them use two time cards so it was unclear how long they worked each week. Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith described how one worker, while working 60-70 hours/weeks, "was paid 22 cents per garment or 40 cents for more complicated pieces." While the retailers said they had zero tolerance for the conditions, Smith said, "We think with aggressive enforcement they should have known."

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer seems to have turned the corner after resigning from his Albany office in the middle of a prostitution scandal. And instead of whiling away his summer at the beach, the Steamroller is planning on establishing an investment fund that will focus on turning people's failed dreams into cold hard cash for himself.

Two years after the FBI raided his offices, a former State Assemblyman and labor leader pleaded guilty to racketeering. Brian McLaughlin was charged with over 40 crimes, using his power as a seven-term Assemblyman, division head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and head of the NYC Central Labor Council to bribe and steal.

Costumed performers and tour guides are fighting for unionization at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where they work to recreate the squalid living conditions of turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants, the very group that was integral to 20th century unionization efforts. Dozens of the tenement employees protested last night outside a fundraiser for the museum at Chelsea Piers.

A judge has finally ruled on a long-simmering dispute between a restaurant and its deliverymen. Last March deliverymen at the popular Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Grill, which has locations in Greenwich Village and on the Upper West Side, demanded a raise from owners Simon and Michelle Nget. The deliverymen reasoned that since the chain was pulling in more than $2 million a month, they ought to earn more than $120 for a 75-hour week.

The Independent Budget Office of the City of New York released a five page report [pdf] yesterday projecting that beginning next year, the City will face a serious fiscal crisis when it runs a deficit of $3.1 billion. By 2011, that budget shortfall could more than double, to $6.3 billion. The projections merely take into account current trends in New York City and don't factor in the possibility of a widespread national recession.

Last week everyone from writers on the picket line to bored couch potatoes were abuzz with news that the late night heavyweights would be returning with all new shows. Last night was the big night (Letterman, O'Brien, Kimmel, Ferguson and Leno all returned), and both Conan O'Brien and David Letterman took the stage showing solidarity with strike beards intact. Letterman threatened to shave his later on Conan's show, saying that he'd probably be helping his New York late night pal out since he's returned sans writers.

When we decided to check in on the status of the proposed bill to regulate New York’s exotic dancers, it was partially in the interest of pleasuring ourselves with some droll double entendres. But it seems you’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to beat Daily News Bronx Borough Chief Bob Kappstatter to the pun:

A bill that would license exotic dancers has been bumping and grinding its way ever so slowly through the legislative hopper in Albany - but the "sin-tax" in the measure may leave legislators poles apart.

Remember that cruel(la) couple from Long Island that enslaved two Indonesian women who worked in their mansion? After their million dollar bail plan was announced back in June we hadn't heard much about these two. Today, however, silence was broken after Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her hubby Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani's trial has ended...and the latest is not good news for them!

Sick of watching reruns? Nervous you'll only get 8 episodes of Lost next season? Well, The NY Times reports on the first break in the writers' strike.

David Letterman is pursuing a deal with the Writers Guild of America that would allow his late-night show on CBS to return to the air in early January with the usual complement of material from his writers, even if the strike is still continuing.

Continue reading "Letterman Back to Late Night, Backed by WGA?"

Approximately 85 undocumented workers are being fired from the high-end grocery delivery company Fresh Direct on the on the eve of the holiday season because their status as U.S. residents is disputed. Dozens of workers filed out of the company's Queens warehouse. Fresh Direct blamed a federal probe for the axing of almost a hundred workers. According to the Daily News, "management insisted it carried out the purge under pressure from federal authorities to crack...

The Trinity School, a private school on the Upper West Side that charges annual tuition of $30,000 a year, is prepared to cash in on the rise in property values by opting out of the Mitchell-Lama housing program. That program was designed to reserve housing for middle-class tenants in New York through government subsidized loans and tax breaks. The disparity in below-market rents required by Mitchell-Lama and the value of the building that houses the...

Two sidewalk Christmas tree salesman are accusing the "company" they worked for last year of leaving them out in the cold on Christmas Eve, waiting for thousands of dollars in wages that never appeared. The yuletide stiffing apparently was in retribution for either 1) skimming sales revenue, or 2) talking publicly about the shadowy figure who allegedly is the kingpin of sidewalk Christmas trees. Last year, an experienced tree-seller and longtime employee of Kevin...

Unnamed sources are telling the Daily News and The Post that a deal between the stagehands’ union and Broadway producers is within reach. The two sides have an agreement on the main sticking point, the dispute over the number of stagehands required for a show’s “load-in” and are currently negotiating salaries. As one source put it, "Everybody is confident we can finally get this done." There’s even optimism that some shows affected by the strike...

Last week the Origami Tree went up in all its folded glory, and pretty soon all eyes will be on the "most famous tree in the world" when the Rockefeller Center's spruce gets lit up (with LEDs!). amNewYork spoke to David Murbach, the gardens manager at Rockefeller Center, who drives the back roads of the Northeast looking for trees each year prior to doing an aerial survey in the winter months to see which evergreens...

Earlier this week, a National Labor Committee report claimed that crosses sold at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity Church and other churches were made in Chinese sweatshops. The NLC said that the Singer Company employed young women at 26 cents an hour and forced them to work a 100 hours a week; plus, the woman are docked pay for food and boarding, leaving them with pay of just 9 cents an hour. You can read...

State Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman has ruled that the Broadway production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas can and will proceed, despite the theater owner’s attempt to lock out the stagehands. “Grinch” producers dragged Jucamcyn, the third largest owner of Broadway theaters, into court yesterday seeking an injunction to let the show go on. Local One, the stagehands’ union, is on strike until a contract is agreed upon with the producers’ league, of which...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released data showing Manhattan as the country's highest paid place. Thanks to financial executives' salaries, the average weekly salary for a Manhattanite is $2,821. The next highest weekly salary in the country is Fairfield, Connecticut - $1,979. The figure reflect the heady first quarter of 2007. The rest of New York City residents make more modest amounts. Queens residents make an average of $831/week, followed by $788 made in...

Elizabeth Currid's new book, The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City, posits that the city's culture is the key our fiscal well-being. With insights culled from many of New York's leading players in the worlds of art, fashion and music, she draws a detailed blueprint of how these creative processes become big-money industries. Currid's thesis is that the conditions that have made New York one of the cultural capitals of...

Broadway’s blackout grew blacker still Sunday night when talks between the stagehands’ union and producers broke down again. Around 9pm, after two days of negotiations averaging about 12 hours a day, the league of producers reached the end of their patience. A spokesman for the union, Local One, issued a statement saying that “producers informed Local One that what Local One offered was not good enough, and they left.” This despite the intervention of Disney’s...

For the first time since November 8th, Local One, the stagehands’ union, is meeting with the Broadway producers’ league to talk it out. (Local One has been on strike since last Saturday over proposed changes to their contracts.) Insiders are expressing guarded optimism about the talks because they’re proceeding with the help of Disney’s senior V.P. of labor relations, Robert W. Johnson. Disney is not a member of the producers' league and thus not directly...

Make sure you’re sitting down before reading further: Today TV bloggers formed a virtual picket line to support the Writers Guild strike. We’ve been refreshing Ramblings of a TV Whore all day, hoping for some blogging scab to post something! All this strike activity is becoming quite the trend; CBS News writers are expected to join their more gifted and talented “creative” colleagues who are entering week two of the strike. The CBS News scribes...

It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after...