Buy Now, Pay Later

Hochul and Mulgrew play fast and loose with our pensions.

Kathy Hochul looked pretty tough the other day standing up to the President a few days back, but the next day she declined to remove scandal-plagued Eric Adams. She looked considerably less tough at that moment, if you ask me. Don’t ask me to analyze her political calculations because I haven’t a clue, but she seems to want to help Adams out with his finances.

In fact, Hochul’s willing to bet our pensions to help out Adams.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that Michael Mulgrew and his Very Smart People agreed to save the city 600 million dollars a year, forever, in exchange for a three year contract that hovered around cost of living. For that, he agreed to dump retirees into an inferior Medicare Advantage program, and also to cut city costs for everyone else by 10%.

Sadly for Mulgrew, but good for us, NYC Retirees have been kicking his ass in court for years. So where is Mulgrew gonna get the 600 million he promised to Eric Adams?

Well, it looks like Hochul is helping everyone out:

Late Thursday, Hochul’s 30-day state budget bill amendments included a technically complicated piece of legislation designed to reduce city pension costs by $1.3 billion this fiscal year and next, and by another $9.6 billion over the following six years. The change would affect the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), which has $90 billion in assets and covers 350,000 active and retired employees; the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (NYCTRS), which has $285 billion in assets covering 200,000 active and retired employees; and the much smaller Board of Education Retirement System (BERS), which has 58,000 active and retired members and $6.3 billion in assets.¹

It goes on to say this will save the city 11 billion through 2032. The only problem is that they will have to pay it all back later. This appears to affect only certain unions—but not cops or firefighters. Which unions are involved?

Hochul’s amortization proposal is of strong interest to the two largest unions whose members belong to the pension funds in question—District Council 37 of AFSCME and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Indeed, it’s safe to assume nothing like this would see the light of day if Henry Garrido and Michael Mulgrew weren’t supporting it—assuming they aren’t, in fact, actively lobbying for it.

It looks like the cops and firefighters aren’t messing with this one.

You’ve seen those commercials about home equity, haven’t you? Take out a loan on your house. Here’s a hundred thousand dollars. Build a dormer. Go to Vegas. Support your drug habit. Whatever.

All you have to do is pay later.

So what could this mean? The article suggests the money “saved” could be used for pay increases in the next round of contract negotiations. What’s at risk? Only the pensions of retired workers, of course. If this rings familiar, it’s because we all know the 600 million in annual “savings,” the ones Mulgrew negotiated to dump everyone into inferior medical plans, were used to negotiate pay raises.

Mulgrew establishes, over and over, that no one can get a raise without giving back something. The first ones he throws to the dogs, of course, are retirees. Why not give up retiree health care for salary increases they will never receive? Why not risk their pensions to fund further raises? What does he care? He’s making well more than any of us.

Could Mulgrew be making some kind of deal? Could he possibly be doing this in lieu of dumping us into Medicare Advantage? Will he schedule some big victory march on Broadway proclaiming he’s our savior, and has found a way out of the Medicare quagmire he himself created?

Or could this money go to repair Tier 6, at least to some extent? Hey, it’s campaign season, and Mulgrew himself brought up “shenanigans.” No one does them better than Unity Caucus. Why not try try whatever to make himself look good to younger teachers? After all, the only thing at risk is pensions, and they won’t have to worry about them for some time now.

And honestly, even if he screws up, what does it matter to Michael Mulgrew? By 2032, he’ll have stepped down.

If this deal goes bad, Mulgrew’s successor can deal with all the blowback.

Even if there isn’t enough left to pay your pension, or the pensions of those who come after you, Mulgrew will do fine. If Mulgrew is making 350K this year, a good 200-225 of it comes from UFT. UFT will pay that portion of his pension even if the city is broke. And hey, he probably doesn’t spend a lot. All his gala luncheons with VIPs are on us.

Michael Mulgrew can’t negotiate a contract that meets cost of living without giving something away. For the last ten years, he’s been dismantling our health care. This year, he appears perfectly willing to risk our pensions.

We need responsible leadership. We need leadership that won’t mortgage our future for a quick fix. Instead? We have this:

We can certainly do better. No more quick fixes. No more playing games. City workers need raises to meet cost of living. Cost of living raises merit no givebacks whatsoever. None of Mulgrew’s Very Smart People seem to know that.

At ABC, we believe A Better Contract entails a contract without givebacks. In fact, Mulgrew’s perpetual giving back is likely to leave us with nothing left to give back.

As UFT President, Amy Arundell will put an end to this nonsense.

With new leadership, we will restore our credibility with the Municipal Labor Committee. Then, we will use it to organize, so that pattern bargaining can no longer be used as a cudgel to bully us all into sub-standard contracts.

No more sellouts, and no more gambling with pensions.