To Help Others, We Must First Help Ourselves

Health first. Starbucks later.

I love seeing Unity members come here, commenting on how it’s naive to complain about our union hiking prices by factors up to 100% on people with fixed incomes. It’s great to see them come here and support taking even more of our hard-earned pensions, even as the Welfare Fund sits on a billion dollar surplus. We know where Unity stands.

In fairness, they’re partially right. Everything goes up—except our pensions. In 2007, and again in 2024, Unity resolved to fix our laughable COLA, which does not remotely keep up with cost of living. Perhaps in 2041, they’ll pass yet another resolution. Then, future retirees can wait another 17 years for a new resolution.

Meanwhile, we sorely need leaders who represent us. I’m sick of being misled and abused by Unity. To buy retiree votes, they offered us a $105 refund on some of the co-pays they imposed. Then, because they consider us a bunch of doddering fools, they not only wiped it out, but also took an extra 15 bucks from us. (I’ll come back to that.)

Unity figured no one would notice. Perhaps it’s because Retiree Advocate (RA) leadership, in their zeal to push pet causes, has offered them little to no pushback. After all we’ve been through, it boggles my mind RA reps voted unanimously for a health plan they weren’t allowed to see. Hopefully, it’s as good as Unity says, but all we have is their word.

How good is that word? RA leadership may have forgotten, but I haven’t—Unity repeatedly misled us about health plans. During the campaign, RA was all about health care. Since the election, they’ve organized around their pet causes and left us to fend for ourselves. Fortunately, Marianne and NYC Retirees are still active and taking up the slack. No matter what RA prioritizes, we can always work with them.

When you get on a plane, they tell you to put on your oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. It’s good advice. If you were to pass out or die from lack of oxygen, you wouldn’t be much help to your children or anyone else. I see little evidence that the insular, self-serving leadership of RA understands, but it’s clear nonetheless.

When I see Retiree Advocate proudly posting protests at Starbucks, you’ll pardon me if I hesitate to jump with joy. To be clear—I’m not a fan of Starbucks. There are a whole bunch of shops that unionized, and they’ve yet to settle a single contract. Their labor record leaves much to be desired. I don’t patronize Starbucks, and I support the protests.

Still, we are a retiree group. Our prime focus must be city retirees. If we can’t remember that, we could well be reduced to working at Starbucks ourselves. Our current leadership has dropped the ball. In fact, they’ve taken the ball and thrown it as far away from us as they could. What are the priorities of our Retiree Advocate (RA) leaders?

Jonathan Halabi is on record saying he doesn’t support 1096. Michael Shulman announced to the RTC executive board that health care was no longer our main issue, and that is was, rather, creeping fascism. These are the people leading our chapter. And it shows.

I’m no fan of creeping fascism. However, if I’m not healthy, I’ll be in no position to fight it. Nor will you. Without our health, we can’t work to make things better for ourselves, our students, our children, or anyone at all.

That’s a big reason we sorely need 1096, or whatever it’s called next year, passed. It’s a big reason we overwhelmingly voted to support it. Unity opposes it, claiming that it’s a violation of the Taylor Law. Here’s a news flash, Unity—The Taylor Law applies to city workers, and we are retired.

Unity also says that 1096 is an infringement upon collective bargaining. That’s not only false, but also insulting. As Unity is ageist, and celebrates being so, it doesn’t surprise me they expect us to believe such nonsense. Regardless, we do not vote on collective bargaining agreements. Why? Because they don’t apply to us. Again, we’re retired.

They take us for fools. They think we don’t notice that, while other unions charge members nothing for pharmacy insurance, we’re paying $360 a month per couple. That’s outrageous. Forget Starbucks.

We should be out in front of 52 Broadway protesting the outrageous pharmacy fees Unity levies on us.

As for 1096, there is only one possible motive for Michael Mulgrew and DC37 boss Henry Garrido to oppose it—They want control over our health care. It’s great that Mulgrew says he will not support Medicare Advantage for retirees, but actions speak louder than words. By preventing 1096 from even being voted on, they preserve their option of dumping us into an inferior health plan.

Why do they require that option if they plan not to use it? Do you trust Unity to do the right thing? Neither do I.

Meanwhile, they double our SHIP costs. For me at least, that’s unreasonable. I was almost breaking even with them before, but the paperwork required to get the $105 back is so tedious it may not be worth our time. Rather than demanding Unity make it easier for us, RA’s Bennett Fischer claims, falsely, that it’s no more complicated than other SHIP refunds. Every other interaction I’ve had with SHIP has been direct and simple.

Retiree Advocate members are upset with me. They don’t like it when I point out they’re undemocratic, that they now want a loyalty oath, or that they’re failing to represent us. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t like it either. Still, they not only fail to address it, but also have a fundamental misunderstanding of who we’re dealing with.

Case in point—I wrote a letter for our RTC Executive Board to send to City Council members in support of 1096. I wrote that we needed it because we needed protection from both the city and our union leaders. The part about our union leaders was cut. Michael Shulman, RA/ New Action leader, wrote he did not deem the mention of union leaders appropriate. Bennett and RA agreed, and the letter blamed only the city.

The fact is, Unity led the battle to demean our health care. We can pretend that isn’t the case. RA and New Action like to view Unity as our colleagues. And they are, sort of, even if they work in nice offices at 52, while the rest of us spend our days in overcrowded, poorly maintained, ancient school buildings. They’re sort of our colleagues even if they get huge salaries and second pensions.

That said, we need to protect ourselves from them. Remember when they were campaigning? They offered $105 back from the Mulgrew Tax. They didn’t tell us how complex the process would be. After the election was over, they took it back and more. This is what happens when we trust Unity.

Now it’s good that the folks in RA finally woke up and voted no on something—the SHIP increase. Still, that brings us back to the question about Unity. Are they colleagues or adversaries? Well, given the committee was four Unity and three elected retiree reps, it’s quite clear they’ve stacked the deck against us. Playing in Unity’s sandbox gets us nowhere. (I wasted three years learning that.)

Furthermore, the $105 refund has proven to be a classic bait and switch. While Unity bought votes with it last time, we can’t forget what they’ve done. In 2027, we need to look out for ourselves. That means voting out Unity, and electing someone who will stand up to them.

To help ourselves, we need to recognize Unity as our adversary. And we need leaders with the imagination to challenge them. We need leaders who will call them out when they attack us, and think outside the box.

If RA wants to protest at Starbucks, that’s fine. If they want to march against creeping fascism that’s their right. That said, no matter how anyone feels about it, they were elected to protect and preserve our health care. As far as our chapter is concerned, that needs to be priority number one. That’s what RA leadership should be organizing.

At that, they’ve failed spectacularly. To put it plainly, retirees first. Starbucks later.