Retiree Enemy Number One

Michael Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus

It’s clear to me (perhaps not to others) that our ostensible union leaders openly act against us. It’s not easy to conceive of our elected leaders, those people we pay with our dues, as our enemies. However, considering the facts, there’s no other conclusion to reach.

I cannot overstate how directly and shamelessly our these bosses operate counter to our interests. Michael Mulgrew can stand on his pedestal and blabber about how well UFT treats retirees, but it’s important to watch what he does. And what he does, not to put too fine a point on it, is disrespect us, disparage us, act against our interests, and spin tales to rationalize Whatever.

The most obvious and egregious example of this is his crusade against Intro 1096, which would not only protect our Medicare (from him), but also eliminate the odious co-pays—the ones he imposed in order to make his inferior “Advantage” plan look better by comparison. Taking us for a bunch of rubes, Mulgrew placed a limit on the number of copays with Medicare Advantage, but none on real Medicare.

I go to meetings, speak to members, read messages public and private, and everywhere people ask why Mulgrew won’t call on anyone from RTC to bring up the co-pay resolution. (I was pretty surprised that Bennett Fischer, given a chance to speak, didn’t bring it up the other night at the Delegate Assembly.)

I wrote the first draft of that resolution, but did so with RTC in mind as an audience. Predictably, though it passed, Unity took no action on it. Sure, during their struggle to get re-elected, they introduced a process full of redundant, tedious paperwork to get 105 bucks back. That may have won them some votes from people who didn’t yet comprehend the process.

It was not hard to predict that Unity would not entertain this resolution at the DA. There are two issues here—one is that they don’t want rank and file getting all uppity, like us retirees. Rank and file is blanketed in apathy and that’s how Unity likes it. The other is that this resolution is not suited for rank and file. They pay a whole lot more in co-pays than we do and are likely to be unsympathetic to us.

As this struggle goes on, no one in RTC has bothered to rewrite the resolution. No one has bothered to add that we’re already paying premiums rank and file does not. No one’s bothered to point out that $360 a month per couple is a significant amount, or that it’s gone up 50% in two years. I haven’t rewritten because I know the petition, even if one of us were to be called on, would linger forever under Unity feel-good resolutions and never be passed anyway. I’ve seen it before.

That’s what happens to resolutions that disturb UFT bosses.

1096 is something quite different. It’s very simple. It says that we enshrine our care, as it existed a few years ago, into code. Mulgrew makes the absurd argument that this means City Council could overturn collective bargaining. He fails to note that retirees have neither voice nor vote in collective bargaining. He fails to note that we are not the recipient of compensation increases he negotiates.

Pointedly, he fails to note it’s not the City Council that acts to reduce our benefits. It is he, Michael Mulgrew, who does that. He was ready to dump us all into Medicare Advantage in order to procure a compensation increase that did not even meet cost of living. We don’t need protection from the City Council. We need their support, and we need protection from Michael Mulgrew, who will sell us out in a New York minute.

Mulgrew and Unity think we are a bunch of addle-brained old coots, unlikely to notice. They have their lawyers spin outlandish arguments about the Taylor Law, which says municipal employees face draconian penalties for striking. What does a retiree strike even look like? Does it entail us marching en masse back to public schools to work for free?

Sometimes I fantasize being able to afford the drugs Mulgrew appears to be taking.

But a whole lot of my brother and sister retirees have trouble affording their prescription drugs after paying co-pays, not to mention the sky-high pharmacy premiums Mulgrew imposes on us.

Do most retirees even know that NYPD doesn’t pay those premiums? Do they know FDNY and DC37 don’t pay them either? Michael Mulgrew musters the audacity to declare we have the best Welfare Fund in the Galaxy, but hopes we never find out most of the other city agencies cover pharmacy insurance for retirees.

Don’t even get me started on the District Rep. who circulated ageist memes to chapter leaders at the DA. Who knows how many times he did it before being called out? Who knows how many others were doing the same? What we do know, is rather than condemn this blatant bigotry, Unity got him to talk about his grandma, or some such nonsense, and applauded him at the Executive Board.

Imagine if the DR had been discussing a racial, national or religious group, a gender or sexual orientation. UFT bosses would have scrambled to find that unacceptable. Imagine someone announcing it’s fine because some of their best friends are Jewish, or whatever.

Ageism, though, is just fine with the Unity Caucus if you can claim to love your grandma.

It’s not just the juvenile stereotypes they spread around and chuckle over—it’s the fact that they work with impunity against our interests.

Though we voted overwhelmingly, twice, to support 1096, Unity openly lobbies against us, rationalizing their battle with nonsensical arguments.

Let’s not forget that Mulgrew kept the para bill under wraps for months, citing concerns about collective bargaining, Let’s not forget that paras are active worker who are indeed subject to collective bargaining, Let’s not forget they worked to accommodate that bill.

Well, if they are so frigging concerned about 1096, let them figure out how to make that work. They’ve not lifted a finger to do so. The only conclusion I can reach is that Mulgrew wants to continue to hold us as a bargaining chip. He’s ready to throw us under the bus at a moment’s notice, in order to procure the next contract that fails to keep up with cost of living.

I’ve just heard that Mulgrew has hired former City Council speaker Corey Johnson as a lobbyist, for 16K a month. Beats working, I guess. In fairness, I’ve never seen Johnson accused of ageism. I have, though, seen him accused of racism.

Will Johnson be going to City Council to make sure retirees can’t protect our health insurance or reverse the co-pays, the ones that could increase any time Unity needs cash to fund a crappy compensation increase? Almost certainly.

And if they don’t use him, they have others. We’ve organized Fix Retiree Benefits to get in their faces about this. You’ll be hearing how to join us and more right here.