Shuler & Hennelly — Challenge to Teamster Boss O’Brien; NJ Police Killing; NYCHA Tenants Dig In; Harlem Legionnaires’ Outbreak
Hour 1
Hour 2 (Segment A)
Hour 2 (Segment B)
By Bob Hennelly
As New York City’s Broadway unions sit down with management to start contract talks, AFL‑CIO President Liz Shuler speaks with Bob Hennelly about President Trump’s all‑out attack on organized labor with his ending collective bargaining rights for one million federal workers.
New Brunswick Police Shooting
We also take a closer look at the police shooting in New Brunswick. On Aug. 8, New Brunswick police shot and killed 68‑year‑old Deborah Terrell, who was distraught and allegedly holding a knife when the police arrived. Terrell was widely known to be suffering with a mental disability and the community is pressing for answers as to why the police response did not include mental health workers who are trained in de‑escalation.
NJ.com reported the police used pepper spray and a taser, and then one officer shot her.
Most disconcerting was a bystander video that shows how quickly the encounter happened and the few chaotic seconds in which one of the officers trips and falls into the other cops.
We are joined by Larry Hamm, with the People’s Organization for Progress; Tormel Pittman, Deborah Terrell’s nephew; and Dr. Joe Wilson, a labor consultant with DC 37 Local 2501, which represents the FDNY EMS workforce.
Related vs. NYCHA Tenants
In the B Block we revisit the battle of 3,500 tenants to fend off forced displacement at the Elliott‑Chelsea and Fulton Houses in Manhattan to make way for a $1.9 billion re‑development by the Related Company.
Layla Law‑Gisko joins Renee Keitt, presidents of the Elliott‑Chelsea Tenants Association, along with Joe Maniscalco, the editor of Work‑Bites, the independent labor news website.
Legionnaires’ in Harlem
We get an update on the Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem that killed several people and sickened scores more from Dr. Steve Auerbach, a retired Captain in the U.S. Health Service. He’s joined by Cameron Clark, Climate Justice Campaign Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Clark previously worked as a policy researcher at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and as a special assistant to the commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, where he developed the health department’s environmental justice outreach strategy. Cameron studied biology and community health education at Howard University, earned his master’s in public policy from the University of Oxford, and is currently completing his medical degree at Columbia University.
His work at WE ACT focuses on environmental health policy, toxic exposures, and disparities in asthma and respiratory diseases.
The Harlem outbreak has been traced back to July 26 with clusters in upper Manhattan ZIP codes 10027, 10030, 10035, 10037, and 10039, officials said. “Legionnaires’ disease is a type of pneumonia. It is caused by bacteria (Legionella) that grow in warm water,” according to the NYC DOH. “Legionnaires’ disease causes flu‑like symptoms, and complications from the disease can be fatal. People who inhale mist that contains Legionella bacteria can get sick.”
The NYC DOH advises that most people who are exposed to the bacteria do not develop Legionnaires’ disease, and it is not contagious — you cannot get it from someone else. You cannot get Legionnaires’ disease by drinking the water. The bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease does not spread through cooled air from air conditioners.
According to WABC‑TV, here were the physical addresses linked to the outbreak:
- BRP Companies, Lafayette Development LLC, 2239 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard
- BVK, 215 West 125th Street
- Commonwealth Local Development, 301 West 124th Street
- CUNY — City College Marshak Science Building, 181 Convent Avenue
- Harlem Center Condo, 317 Lenox Avenue
- NYC Economic Development Corporation, 40 West 137th Street
- NYC Health Department Central Harlem Sexual Health Clinic, 2238 Fifth Avenue
- NYC Health + Hospitals Harlem Hospital, 506 Lenox Avenue
- The New York Hotel Trades Council Harlem Health Center, 133 Morningside Avenue
Teamsters’ Challenge — An Injury to One Is an Injury to All
Back in the summer of 2024, when International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien courted the favor of President Trump by addressing the GOP convention in Milwaukee, Trump was still making a play for blue‑collar households. Now that Trump has gone all out to end collective bargaining for a million federal union workers, Richard Hooker, Secretary‑Treasurer of Teamsters Local 623 out of Philadelphia, says it’s time to challenge O’Brien, who leads the union that represents 1.3 million workers.
Hooker is joined by Chris Silvera, Secretary‑Treasurer of Teamsters Local 808, who explains why it’s important for the American labor movement to support Chris Smalls, the founder of the Amazon Labor Union, who was detained and beaten by the Israeli military after they illegally boarded the Gaza aid ship Smalls was aboard.
