After 8,000 utility workers were locked out earlier this summer, Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 1-2 in New York City approved a new labor contract with Consolidated Edison. 

The New York Times reports:

Harry Farrell, president of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, said on Wednesday that its membership voted by a margin of 93 percent to accept a new four-year agreement with Consolidated Edison.

This is a cross-post from the New York State AFL-CIO website.

New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento on the end of the Consolidated Edison lockout:

This was one of the toughest contract fights New York has seen in recent memory, and I could not be prouder of the way the labor movement responded. Up against Con Ed’s billions, union members from across New York City and the state joined together to support the 8,500 workers and their families who were forced to the street. Public sector, private sector and building trades—our unions wholeheartedly embraced Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 1-2 members as their own, walking picket lines, rallying in Union Square, and reaching out to our communities.

This is a guest post from New York State AFL-CIO social media coordinator Kevin Eitzmann.

A diverse group of thousands of union members and community supporters marched in the heat from Con Edison’s "ivory tower" at 4 Irving Place to Union Square, New York City. With chants of “We Are One!” and signs bearing such slogans as “Con Ed Can’t Con Me” and “Con Ed Took Away My American Dream,” people were expressing their frustrations and showing solidarity with the locked-out Utility Workers (UWUA).

New York City taxi drivers have something to celebrate. Starting in September, they will receive a long-awaited raise, reported The New York Times.

The 45,000 taxi cabs in New York City have been described as the seventh-largest transportation system in the United States—and at the AFL-CIO Innovators webpage, writer Robert Struckman notes:

If you ask a driver, there’s a good chance he or she will tell you, "I’m a member of the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA)."

Yesterday, 282 Cablevision technicians and dispatchers in Brooklyn voted to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1109 in a union election administered by the National Labor Relations Board, overcoming a vigorous anti-union campaign led by Cablevision. They are the first Cablevision workers to join a union. Cable TV is an overwhelmingly nonunion industry while the traditional telecommunications industry remains highly unionized.

Today, 285 Brooklyn-based Cablevision workers—the Cablevision 99%—will vote in a election for union representation.

The city of New York helps out taxpayers and retired public employees by sticking with a traditional defined-benefit pension plan rather than a 401(k) model, according to a new report issued by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS). According to the NIRS release describing the report, ”A Better Bang for New York City’s Buck,” which was commissioned by New York City Comptroller John C. Liu:

New York City’s defined-benefit pension plans can deliver the same retirement income at a nearly 40 percent lower cost than a defined contribution 401(k)-type individual account.

In New York City, Wall Street profits are skyscraper high again, real-estate developers and companies are receiving billions in public subsidies and yet a record number of full-time working New Yorkers are relying on food stamps and emergency food assistance because they do not earn enough to support themselves or their families.