Mulgrew Fails to File Amicus Brief (or Put His Money Where His Mouth Is)

After three weeks, his Medicare turnaround is nothing but empty words.

Back on June 23rd, after decisively losing two concurrent union elections, Michael Mulgrew declared he no longer supported Medicare Advantage for retirees. Nice as this was to hear, in itself it has little to no significance. Mulgrew’s BFFs in the Municipal Labor Committee have written a letter to Mayor Adams, pretty much falling in line with Mulgrew. I don’t yet have a link, but they’re still claiming Advantage was fine:

While the MLC as a whole believed the negotiated, custom-designed Medicare Advantage plan held promise for our retirees, its implementation has been repeatedly blocked by the courts.

This fails to acknowledge what we all know, and I’ll come back to that shortly.

More importantly, there is legislation before the city to protect Medicare for retirees. In the city, the bill was called 1099. When it returns, it will have a new number. The State Senate and Assembly bills were A7866 and S8388. They will have new numbers as well, and they will be reintroduced.

Retiree Advocate has asked Mulgrew to support the bills, and we’ve heard crickets in response. The state bills had the votes to pass, but were not voted upon because of “union opposition.” What that means, actually, is leadership opposition, Michael Mulgrew and Unity included. In legislative terms, the UFT is not only a powerful union in its own right, but also the biggest local of NYSUT by far. We have great influence over the state union’s position.

The problem, of course, is that Michael Mulgrew and Unity have done absolutely nothing to insure the quality of care city retirees have been led to expect. Eric Adams is currently trying to get the Court of Appeals to dump us into an Advantage plan administered by Aetna. This is unconscionable, and 100% the fault of Unity’s Mulgrew.

As for the MLC’s letter, all our careers, we’ve been promised real Medicare. No one ever mentioned anything about having a for-profit corporation having veto power over our doctors’ decisions (let alone dictating which doctors we could visit). The NY State Supreme Court has repeatedly declared this move could result in irreparable harm to us. They’ve also affirmed, repeatedly, that the downgrade in insurance is not only harmful, but also a broken promise.

I started working for the DOE back in 1984 for around 13K. My first boss was the worst I ever had, and I turned down a job making deliveries for Federal Express that paid marginally more. I have no idea why I did that. Still, year two I had a better supervisor and got a better feel for the job I came to love.

My dad, a businessman, didn’t really love the notion of my becoming a teacher, but sang praises about the retirement benefits. For the record, weakening retirement benefits is not how we’re gonna retain teachers.

Michael Mulgrew and his happy-go-lucky Unity patronage cult need to file an Amicus brief, supporting our proposed legislation. If Mulgrew had meant what he’d said about his turnaround, he’d have done it concurrently with his announcement.

After we, Retiree Advocate, won the chapter, breaking Unity’s 60-year stranglehold over the union, Randi Weingarten said she heard us. If that is indeed the case, she will get on the phone and tell Mulgrew to issue Amicus briefs immediately. Otherwise, as eloquent as she is, Weingarten’s words will mean as little as those of Michael Mulgrew.

We don’t need words. We need action. If Michael Mulgrew wants any remote shot at retaining the Presidency for Unity, he needs to not only file Amicus briefs, but also make sure that our legislation passes.

We will see anything less as the hollow, meaningless lip service it is. We have longer memories than Mulgrew and Unity think we do. We demonstrated that in this year’s election, and we’re ready and willing to do it again next year.

You are with us, or you are against us. We’ve been around the block, and we will not be fooled by happy talk.