Retirees Can Do Better

It's time to stand up and organize.

My friend who wrote the last column that appeared here has further ideas on what our chapter might look like. With or without our friends in Retiree Advocate (RA), we are running. I’m presenting this as a dialogue, with my comments in italics.

Stop Balancing the City Budget On the Backs of Retirees. Promises Made Should Be Promises Kept.

This has been a theme for the NYC Organization of Retirees, and it needs to be ours as well. We can no longer afford to simply go along with Unity, who’d have happily sold out Medicare for us and dumped us into an inferior plan. Not only that, but they had several of their Big Shots claim the MA plan was not good enough for them. They demanded the right to pay up, which many or most city retirees would not have been able to manage.

On Healthcare:

· Stop pitting retiree and in-service member benefits against one another.

This is an ongoing problem. I wrote about this in my old blog, the one whose domain was blocked just around the time Unity threatened me with civil and criminal penalties for the offense of parodying our Dear Leader, King Michael Mulgrew. At the time it was shocking that a union leader would pit one union group against another—not anymore.

· Demand that the union leadership stop negotiating away retiree health benefits in collective bargaining. Retirees are no longer employed, so our promised benefits should not be the subject of collective bargaining. We cannot vote on union contracts.

And we therefore ought not to be a bargaining chip, no matter how badly Unity wants us in their vest pocket.

· Fight for NYC and NYS legislation that would prohibit government and unions from reducing health care benefits after retirement – as is currently guaranteed for pension benefits in the NYS constitution. Support and work with the NYC Organization of Retirees on those campaigns.

A few months back, 82% of us voted to do just that. A year earlier, 77% of us did. Unity, though, decided to lobby against what we support. This is a slap in the face to all of us. Not only that, but Mulgrew is threatening to sue if our legislation sees the light of day. It’s pretty clear that Unity cares only for its own power, and could not care less about what we voted for. This is not anything remotely resembling respect.

· Stop negotiating higher deductible and copay costs on vulnerable retirees who have much lower incomes and much higher medical bills. Don’t use the planned cheaper replacement of the GHI Senior Care Medicare gap plan to further increase deductibles, copays, and administrative barriers.

That’s a concern I share. Our union now has a so-called Health Committee. This committee voted to pass a health plan they were not allowed to see. Furthermore, five members of Retiree Advocate are on the committee, and four voted yes. One did not show up, and didn’t vote at all. We cannot accept plans based on Unity’s word. They’ve lied to us with impunity for years.

· Stop forcing Medicare-eligible retirees and their dependents into the outrageously expensive City retiree drug plan. Include retirees and their dependents in welfare fund drug coverage as covered for in-service members – like most other municipal unions do. Support the “Stop Charging Retirees” campaign.

This is important. If other Welfare Funds, including NYPD, FDNY and DC37, can pay prescription premiums for retirees, so can UFT’s.

We need to think differently.

On Pensions

· Demand that the union leadership commit to negotiating a return to the 8.25% interest on the TRS TDA fixed return fund that other union members receive.

Perhaps, we can do this, but the city will undoubtedly demand something in return. This is something Randi Weingarten gave up in exchange for making educators work a few days in August. If you realistically wish to make it happen, you might want to consider what we buy it with.

· Demand a voice in any union deals that could adversely affect current or future retiree pension benefits – such as changes to the City’s contributions to TRS and BERS.

This is what’s going on right now. Last year we opposed the reamortization plan in the RTC, and passed a resolution. Bennett Fischer, and perhaps some of his fellow RA members, agreed to alter it so we opposed it “at this time.” Predictably, one year later, it’s back, and UFT bosses have offered not a whisper in opposition. I wonder whether this may have been a quid pro quo for reforming Tier 6.

Stop Disrespecting 70,000 UFT Retirees

The current union leadership has shown that it no longer respects its retired educators – teachers, paras, therapists, and school secretaries – who spent their careers serving the City, its children, and families -- and the union.

I couldn’t agree more. After we pass a resolution supporting 1096, Mulgrew sends Unity out to lobby against it. Furthermore, he’s now saying he’ll sue if it is passed. This is spitting in our faces. It’s remarkable that, after charging us premiums most retirees don’t pay, and after working actively against our interests, he musters the audacity to claim UFT treats us in some special fashion.

· Stop disparaging and making fun of retirees when they reasonably object to union leadership decisions that negatively affect us. Retirees were not “nervous” or “confused” when we objected to being forced into inferior privatized “Medicare Advantage.”

This is how Mulgrew rationalizes his so-called opposition to Medicare Advantage. He fails to acknowledge the fact, as demonstrated in NY State Supreme Court, that this is an inferior plan that’s cost people their lives. He fails to acknowledge the fact that many of our doctors will not even accept it.

· Stop making disrespectful ageist comments and encouraging Unity activists to even make fun of the retiree delegates to the Delegate Assembly.

This kind of blows my mind. One of Unity’s District Reps distributed plainly ageist memes to chapter leaders at a Delegate Assembly. Not only did Unity fail to take action against him, fail to apologize, and fail to make him apologize, they also applauded him when he claimed to love his grandma or some such nonsense. This represents a direct endorsement of stereotypes.

Unity is living in the past. Ageism is right up there with every other brand of bigotry.

· Demand that our chapter leadership be allowed to communicate with its own members and get their feedback directly -- without the heavy-handed censorship of the UFT censors who control chapter member contact data.

If we run and win, or even if we run a joint slate with RA, we will fix that. I will get the word out just as I do now, and we will make it available to all.