What Would Mulgrew Say About the Pension Deal?

We can only speculate. So let's do that.

What is Mulgrew gonna say about the pension deal? It’s a tough thing to explain, as I doubt he understands it any better than I do. Will the Very Smart People tell him what to say? Will he read it? I can only conjecture. To be clear, this is parody, protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Of course it’s true that Unity may pay UFT lawyers to threaten me with civil and criminal penalties.

It’s been done before. It’s also true that my former domain, nyceducator.com, was blocked on Blogger shortly after that article appeared. Did the UFT lawyers send a cease and desist to Blogger? I suspect they did, but I can’t prove it. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Do you believe in coincidence?

Hey it’s me, your good pal Mike Mulgrew. You know I’m out there working in your interests, don’t you? Now it seems we have a little misunderstanding about a little deal we’ve worked out with the state. Of course there is a lot of misinformation out there. There always is, because let’s face it, there are people who don’t agree with me. Therefore, whatever they say is misinformation.

No one is borrowing from our pension fund. No one is taking money from our pension system. That’s absolutely not true. Let’s take a look at what people are saying:

Late Thursday, Hochul’s 30-day state budget bill amendments included a technically complicated piece of legislation designed to reduce city pension costs by $1.3 billion this fiscal year and next, and by another $9.6 billion over the following six years. The change would affect the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), which has $90 billion in assets and covers 350,000 active and retired employees; the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (NYCTRS), which has $285 billion in assets covering 200,000 active and retired employees; and the much smaller Board of Education Retirement System (BERS), which has 58,000 active and retired members and $6.3 billion in assets.¹

See? We aren’t taking money out. We’re simply putting less in. Anyone who says anything different is spreading misinformation. Now sure we’ll have to pay all that money back later. But if the stock market does okay, we’ll be fine. And if it doesn’t, well, I’ll be retired by then, so it’s no skin off my apple. For goodness sake, why can’t people just hope for the best, sit down, and shut up?

Rest assured, we have Very Smart People working on this. Our Very Smart People have been working tirelessly to assure that this deal was Very Smart. So honestly, what more can people ask? All required payments will be made to the pension funds. They’ll just be smaller now and higher later. Hey, haven’t you ever bought anything on credit?

Haven’t you ever taken a home improvement loan? You just take the money now, build a new bathroom or whatever, and pay later. Now sure, these days a lot of UFT members can’t afford to buy homes, and that may be exacerbated by the fact that our Very Smart People couldn’t be bothered to make sure compensation increases kept up with inflation.

You like that word, “exacerbated?” I got it from one of my Very Smart People. We make Very Smart deals all the time. Why, just a few years back, we agreed to save the city 600 million dollars a year in health costs, forever, in exchange for a three-year contract that may or may not have kept up with inflation. Four years earlier, we gave a billion dollars from our 1.8 billion Health Stabilization Fund to the city, so teachers could get money the cops and firefighters got ten years later, with no interest whatsoever.

Who makes deals like those? And hey, sure the stabilization fund is now broke, and sure we sold out the retirees, dumping them all into an inferior Medicare Advantage Plan. But hey, we need to save 600 million frigging dollars a year, forever, and it’s gotta come from somewhere. Pretty soon we’ll be cutting in-service health care by 10%, and no one’s gonna like that either. Fortunately, that’s after the election, so I don’t care.

Of course there will be conspiracy theorists saying, “Hey Mike, why didn’t you discuss this with us?” To them I say, what frigging right you you have to ask about my business? Never ask about my business. But just this one time, this one time, you can ask me about my business.

Here’s my answer—as you know, there are things I bring up for votes. Sure, I’ll talk for 90 minutes at the DA to make sure some things don’t come up. Nothing gets voted on if I don’t want it. And the fact is that some things don’t come up at all. For example, I never told anyone what the hell was in Appendix B back in 2018. If I had, no one would have supported it.

So once again, we’ve got this deal. What will the city use the savings for? Well, it’s none of our damn business really. But maybe they’ll let me and Henry off the hook for that 600 million a year we promised. You know, for old times sake. That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? The city says we owe them billions, and someone’s gotta pay.

Regardless, any criticism of this deal comes from people spouting fairy tales They are not Very Smart People, and therefore they have no right to question me. In fact, some of the people questioning me are not even UFT! Everyone knows that no one who isn’t UFT has any right whatsoever to speculate on anything, let alone UFT business! Those bastards should just sit down and shut up.

Of course there will be conspiracy theorists. Some of them may even be UFT, and despite that fact, they should sit down and shut up too. You know, as much as I love and respect teachers, I have to say that too few of them have learned the vital skill of sitting down and shutting up. If more people would practice that, I certainly wouldn’t have lost two concurrent elections last year.

This is a good deal to lock in money that’s needed right now. Now don’t you be listening to that Marianne Pizzitola and her beatnik hoodlum gang of retirees. They ruin everything. If it weren’t for them, every city retiree would be in the Emblem MA plan, the best plan that ever was. We wouldn’t have had to replace it with the Aetna plan, also the best plan there ever was.

Given those darn retirees will not sit down and shut up, maybe we can use the city saving to pay the 600 million a year so the retirees don’t come to see me at 52 with torches and pitchforks. You can’t blame me for not wanting torches and pitchforks, can you?

Anyway, you know how these old people are. They don’t even know how to vote anymore. They tossed out Tom Murphy, a champion of civility, who was so civil he didn’t allow and resolutions or votes at all. What’s more civil than that?

Now, the goshdarn retirees whine and bitch just because our unelected District Representatives get caught passing around ageist stereotypes to chapter leaders. What could we do? We brought him to the Executive Board, spat out a whole lot of ineffectual defenses, and applauded him and his ageism. Because that’s the sort of thing our Very Smart People do.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear—anyone criticizing this deal is an enemy of the union. Anyone criticizing me is an enemy of the union. I’m the boss, my people are very smart, and if that weren’t true, why would I be making triple your income? Why would I be taking trips to Switzerland on your dime?

So remember, if anyone criticizes me, shun them. If anyone questions deals I made to save the city money, shun them too. And for goodness sake, don’t register and don’t come to the forum tomorrow night that those bastards at ABC are putting on. They’re going to discuss this deal, which is none of their damn business. These folks are questioning the Divine Right of the UFT President to do Whatever the Hell He Feels Like.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t be bound by democracy. I believe in a very small group making unilateral decisions, forcing my cult to go along with it, and presenting it as a fait accompli. And hey, it’s not just me. Retiree Advocate did the same thing, shutting out 287 of the 300 people who ran with them.

Only ABC practices democracy. That’s why they’re dangerous. They will not sit down or shut up.