The Book of Unity

Have faith in us, even as we lobby against you.

I just read a piece in which Michael Mulgrew claims he wished he’d stopped supporting Medicare Advantage earlier. He talks about the “anxiety” it caused, but doesn’t come out and say what we all know—that he tried to dump us into an inferior plan and assumed we were too stupid to notice.

What Mulgrew really wishes is that he hadn’t just lost the retirees and the paraprofessionals in two concurrent elections. What I wish is that he’d do something to help us, as opposed to simply talking about it.

This is not a level playing field. Michael Mulgrew can get up in front of the DA and claim “I don’t care about politics, but… “ and then he says whatever strikes his fancy, for as long as he pleases. I had a Shakespeare teacher who told us, “Once anyone says but you may disregard whatever precedes it.”

I’ve taught my students that. When your teacher says, “I’d love to pass you, but…” you’re headed for summer school. When your girlfriend tells you, “I really love you, but…,” you might have to go out and write a country song, no matter how much you hate country music. When Mulgrew says this isn’t political, there’s always a but. It will certainly have something to do with ABC and our nefarious efforts to actually improve things for members.

For example, I note that UFT has moved its “union interference” resolution to item number one for this week’s Delegate Assembly. Why? Well, this will give some long-winded Unity members the chance to pontificate about outside forces who don’t support them. They’ll contend anyone who opposes Unity is anti-union.

Unity barely recalls what union is.

Otherwise, we’d have had online voting, as PSC does. Unity’s quite content with a system in which 25% of members bother to vote. They’ve been “studying” online voting for a decade or two, and hope to continue doing so until hell freezes over. Meanwhile, they’re focused on “union interference.”

It’s understandable, of course. NYC Retirees have proven to be quite influential. Not only that, but after Unity tried to dump all city workers into an inferior Medicare Advantage plan, NYC Retirees failed to say, “Thank you sir, may I have another?” Furthermore, they went on to not only kick Unity’s asses in court eleven times, but also lose them the retiree vote for the first time ever.

Unity has this thing. We’re always supposed to support our fellow union members. But Unity can make scurrilous personal attacks whenever they feel like it. They can take fake names, pretend they aren’t highly compensated union employees, and vilify me, Amy Arundell, Marianne Pizzitola, and pretty much anyone they see fit with no accountability whatsoever.

They adore retirees, but if retirees vote against them, they can circulate ageist memes about us. You see, older people who don’t support Unity are a constant source of hilarity. They even applaud the guy who does it, and act like we should be grateful for being stereotyped. (After all, we have the unique privilege of paying them for it.)

Also, we should pledge allegiance to the Unity Caucus even if they’re out there lobbying against us. And make no mistake, they’re lobbying against both city and state bills that would restore our health insurance as it was before Mulgrew got his paws on it.

For some reason, the Unity Caucus does not wish us to affiliate with groups that will help us, even as they work against us.

Therefore they condemn Marianne Pizzitola, leader of the aforementioned NYC Retirees. They want to make it official union policy that we ought not to align with people who help us, even as out nominal union leadership provides us no support beyond lip service.

This is their big talking point. And when Marianne got into some kind of conflict with Unity’s Lynne Winderbaum, Unity got very upset about it. They got so upset about it that they managed to talk RTC Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer into openly expressing support for her.* (correction below)

Winderbaum is an unelected Unity member working for the Florida UFT chapter. She has an email list of thousands, and unlike our elected chapter leader, Unity does not edit or restrict what she puts out at all. How does Lynne thank Bennett for his support? Predictably, she sends out a mass email urging we vote for the caucus that created the mess we now find ourselves in.

Winderbaum does this even as we’re days away from the Bentkowski case in the NY State Court of Appeals—the one that might dump us all into Medicare Advantage. She does this as Municipal Labor Committee, Unity included (not UFT, because they never asked us), has an amicus brief supporting the city rather than the members.

Winderbaum sends us to an article with some typical Unity talking points. Notable is the claim we support the NY Health Act. That’s a lie, of course. While we all have our personal positions, ABC is neutral on NYHA. You know who does support the NY Health Act? That would be the Unity Caucus. They did this twice, in the Delegate Assembly, once in 2015 and again in 2017. By their own standard, they should disqualify themselves.

Perhaps they forgot.

They further contend we haven’t explained how we’d protect retirees from premiums. That’s an odd claim, considering they’re the ones who wanted us to pay $200 a month, each, to start, in order to retain Medicare. For my wife and I, that would run about 5K a year. If you’re single, lucky you, you’d pay only half that.

Somehow, to the Unity Caucus, 200 a month each is not a premium.

As for Medicare, we’d support the legislation that would protect it, as it was back before Unity imposed the Mulgrew Tax, which began at 15 bucks per visit. Who knows where it will go next? Given we pay considerably more for pharmaceuticals, and given we’re on fixed incomes, this was particularly unwelcome. Maybe Unity forgot to mention they’re lobbying against preserving Medicare for us, on the absurd pretext it would violate the Taylor Law.

Maybe they forgot that they’d made a deal to renegotiate health care for in-service and non-Medicare eligible retirees. Maybe it slipped their minds that they agreed the city would pay 10% less for this new plan. Do you believe that the folks who tried to sell us Medicare Advantage can offer a plan as good or better than what we now have for 10% less?

If Unity’s so keen on preventing premiums, why on earth did they agree to them in writing? And even if they manage to avoid premiums, who’s to say we won’t have exploding co-pays or even more likely, tiered health care?

They claim to have protected our pensions, which is pretty odd. Back when they were falsely accusing us of claiming we’d lose them as a result of their re-amortization scheme, they were quick to point out our pensions are protected by the NY State Constitution. Now, they want all the credit for themselves.

Of course, Unity probably thinks they wrote the state constitution. They appear to take credit for every human development since the discovery of fire, but conveniently forget why they lost the retirees and paras last year.

Alas we have not.

If you haven’t yet voted, check A Better Contract and mail in your ballot.

Correction: Bennett called to remind me he was not persuaded to defend Winderbaum, but rather did so on his own.