You know how the city pushed the Hudson Yards mega-development plan, saying it would be good because it would, besides creating retail, commercial and residential space, bring in tons of construction jobs? Well, now it turns out that Related, the development company who is building it all (including a 51-story skyscraper), has hired a huge California firm as the main contractor. As the Post reports from a Crain's article, "An outfit the size of Tutor Perini doesn’t need to subcontract work to third parties because it owns companies that can perform tasks such as concrete placement and electrical work, while local developers have to outsource the business." more ›

Earlier this month, the NBA players union rejected a deal from owners that basically put the nail in the coffin of the 2011-2012 season. Perhaps realizing that the public doesn't really care that much, the two sides have been meeting this Thanksgiving week to salvage things and bring back basketball by the end of the year. more ›

Welcome to the MTA, John Lhota—now deal with the union! The MTA's new chairman only just started his job yesterday and already he is being thrown into the fire. Nearly six years after the Transit Workers Union struck and ground the city to a halt for three days negotiations for a new worker's union have begun. Luckily, one of the first things Lhota has done to differentiate himself from his predecessor, Jay Walder, is start buddying up with the union. more ›

Following a string of violent attacks against cab drivers (think knifes, teeth) in recent weeks, New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers spokesperson Fernando Mateo is asking the police to do more to keep cabbies safe, comparing cab crime to terrorism. more ›

The nearly month-long strike outside the Central Park Boathouse may finally be coming to a close...and it looks like the union side of the battle may be the winners. No deal has been signed yet, so things could still go wrong, but it currently looks like Boathouse boss Dean Poll has not only agreed to rehire 18 fired workers, he also seems to ready to recognize and negotiate with the New York Hotel Trades Council union. Soon, sub-par overpriced fare in a stunning setting can be yours again—without the guilt of crossing a picket line! more ›

The 65 Central Park Boathouse employees who walked off the job on August 9 in protest against the restaurant's labor practices are getting some heavy-hitting support from the federal National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union matters. more ›

Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state's largest public workers' union agreed to five-year deal late last night which includes union concessions such as a pay freeze and high insurance costs, but the deal also avoids big layoffs. The NY Times says CSEA's cooperation was "a begrudging acknowledgment of the increasingly hostile mood toward public workers" and the NY Post reports, "It's a victory for Gov. Cuomo, who had threatened thousands of layoffs if the CSEA rank-and-file rejected the contract he had negotiated with union leaders." more ›

45,000 Verizon landline workers have been on strike since Sunday, in the largest strike America's seen in years. The unions and Big Red are locked in a bitter battle over proposed cuts to union benefits, which executives claim are necessary because of the bad economy and the company's less lucrative landline division. Unions, of course, scoff at that premise—pointing to the executives' high salaries and the landline division's profit increases—and are digging in for a long fight. In this video, you can see they mean business (warning: the worker's salty talk maybe NSFW): more ›

The unionized staff at the Village Voice won't be striking, after all. Earlier this week, we reported that staffers were poised to strike over a contract dispute, with employee health benefits being one of the largest issues. Today there's word from both sides that an agreement has almost been reached. more ›

Union staff members at The Village Voice are ready and prepared to strike as their contract nears its deadline on June 30th. Today, staffers announced an alternative site, The Real Voice, where they plan to continue writing without management from Village Voice Media. We spoke to a Voice staffer and strike organizer about the situation. more ›

Politico tackles various Republican lawmakers' attempts to dismantle workers' collective bargaining rights, most notably in Wisconsin, and see how the tactics are alienating an important voter base: The cops and firefighters that typically support Republican candidates. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) says he's hearing about it from New Yorkers, "These are down-the-line conservatives. They fully supported Bush in the Iraq war, in the war against terrorism, and on all the gut issues they were there. Some of the guys I talked to said, ‘We stood with Bush on Queens Boulevard. Now, the Republicans have turned on us.’ " more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been wrangling for months over how best to reform LIFO, the "last-in first-out" teacher firing policy. One such idea that has been proposed is for principals to be given more power with their recommendations as to who should be fired or not. But there's one downside to this: what if your principal is a crazy lunatic out to get you? more ›

With the NFL and the players union unable to come to an agreement about how to share the more $9 billion in profits that professional football generates every year, the NFL entered its first lockout in more than 20 years. The Jets and Giants both reacted to the news with tempered optimism: "It may take longer than we all had hoped, but New York Jets fans should know that a deal will get done and I remain confident that there will be NFL football in 2011," said Jets owner Woody Johnson, who went on to place blame on the players union for not negotiating more. Giants team president and CEO John Mara released his own statement directed toward Giants fans: more ›

The inevitable has happened: despite postponing the talks for an extra week, talks between the NFL and the players union have broken down, ensuring there will be a lockout in football for the foreseeable future. The NFL Players Association filed papers today to decertify, disbanding the union and giving it the chance to sue the NFL under a lockout. more ›

The rally for women's health wasn't the only protest to happen in Manhattan yesterday. Hundreds of protesters gathered at City Hall yesterday morning in support of government worker unions in Wisconsin. Wisconsin lawmakers debated a proposal made by Governor Walker that would end collective bargaining. Protesters said an end of collective bargaining was an attack on the middle class: “We’re reducing American workers’ wages to a global, Third World wage,” one woman told CBS 2, “and it makes the people at the top wealthier." more ›

After months of criticism from the likes of Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten announced a plan to overhaul the "last-in, first-out" (LIFO) teacher firing system. Weingarten proposed that tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals will be given a maximum of one school year to improve, and if not, can be fired within 100 days. But there may be even harsher legislation coming that could spell doom for thousands more teachers much sooner. more ›

As you may have heard, there have been some objections raised to a rumored Walmart location in East New York. The City Council is holding hearings at the beginning of next month, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio recently released a report suggesting that a Walmart in NYC would "eliminate more jobs than it creates, result in the loss of independently owned small businesses, and create an increased burden on taxpayers." But the big box company probably isn't sweating it, because its got NY Post columnist Andrea Peyser in its corner. In her column today, titled "Absurd Wal of Fear," Peyser targets one of the studies cited by de Blasio: more ›

Governor Paterson announced today that he'll be laying off 898 state workers by the end of 2010, in order to reduce the state's work force and save $250 million (the state plans to decrease the work force overall by 2,000). And Paterson laid the blame on unions, for not accepting pay lags or furloughs, "I'm not proud of that, but that is significant progress in trying to make sure there is a shared sacrifice in the deficit reduction and in an attempt to keep our budget balanced. I know that I'll get blamed, and I'll accept it, but the people in the leadership of the public employee unions know that they escorted me here." more ›

In the Wall Street Journal's article about Wal-Mart's interest in opening dozens of "smaller" stores in urban areas, there's a sign that Mayor Bloomberg would be happy to welcome the retail behemoth: Mayoral spokesman Andrew Brent said, "We shouldn't tell businesses that want to invest and create jobs in New York City that they can't. New Yorkers are already voting with their feet when they drive outside the City to shop at stores that aren't in the five boroughs." more ›

The NY State Senate Democrats had to return a $15,000 donation from mega retailer Walmart after labor union leaders freaked out. According to the Post, "The action came just days after last week's disclosure in The Post that the Democrats had accepted the cash from the union-resisting Arkansas-based retail chain, which is believed to be interested in putting its first city store in Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson's Brooklyn district." A spokesman for Sampson, who also heads the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, said, "I can confirm that the money was returned. That's as far as I'm going to go on it." more ›

Delta ticket agent Billy Hsin, 54, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Flushing apartment last month, and friends believe it may have been sparked when he was ordered to take time off after a confrontation with an airplane cleaning crew. After their 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines, Delta had reportedly been pushing out unionized workers like Hsin, who was ordered to go home on May 29th after the confrontation. He was told he would be contacted when he could return to work, but Delta never called him before his death. more ›

After a pilots' strike over wages forced Spirit Airlines to cancel flights since last Saturday, the airline has reached a deal with the pilots and says flights will begin again tomorrow. However, the strike won't be over until the pilots sign a back-to-work agreement; Sean Creed, a Spirit captain and union rep, told the AP, "I think our people will be more than willing to assist the company in getting itself back together and fully operational as soon as we possibly can." more ›

It's unclear whether the Parks Department eradicated it (they won't reply to our requests for comment), or if thrifty marijuana hunters came and snatched it up (if so, they're bogarting), but the Union Square marijuana crop is (mostly) gone, surprising no one. Passing by the site of Monday's guerilla marijuana plant, we noticed that it was no longer visible from street level. Hidden behind the officially endorsed flowers and reeds, the proscribed plant is still in existence, but in a very diminished form (see picture). Oh well, we'll always have the Ditmas Park marijuana plant to cheer us up, right bros? more ›

As part of its effort to cut back on overtime and sick time payouts, the MTA has been refusing to fill dozens of slots each day for bus operators who have called in sick or were on vacation (or both!), the Post reports. Since last month, buses without drivers have stayed in the depot instead of heading out with a substitute behind the wheel, causing delays of up to a half hour on some bus lines. more ›

In another effort to help New York's chances at getting Race to the Top funding, the state education department and teachers' unions have proposed overturning legislature that bans teacher evaluations from being linked to test scores. With the new bill, students' standardized test scores would account for 20% of a teacher's grade, and local tests administered by each school would account for another 20%. New York State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner said in a press release, "The proposed evaluation system will help ensure that we have an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school." more ›