Why hasn't RTC submitted an amicus brief in Bentkowski? And If UFT trustees "suspended the process," why has the pension bill passed in the Assembly?

As we face a potential health care catastrophe, our leadership declines to act.

First—I’m told the act to delay pension contributions has passed in the NY State Assembly—one house of two needed. Unity’s withdrawal of support appears purely performative. I will come back to that, but you need to know now.

I’m part of an email chain in which someone posed the question of why we weren’t part of an amicus brief against the city. No one in the chain responded, but I will. It’s not all that hard to imagine why no one else did. I happen to know the answer, as I’m the one who suggested it to the Retired Teacher Chapter (RTC).

Months ago, a commenter on this site suggested we, the RTC, submit an amicus brief supporting NYC Retirees. It sounded like a great idea to me, and I decided to pursue it. I told the reader I’d take it to the RTC Executive Board. As elected Vice-Chair I’m a member. (Of course, that’s not significant enough to merit a vote in Retiree Advocate, which I pushed relentlessly and worked hard to elect, but I’ll get back to that.)

If you are a regular reader, you know that we will very shortly be facing a case called Bentkowski which is designed to dump us all into Medicare Advantage. This is an immediate crisis. It’s the thing that made Unity lose the retiree election. We can pretend it was our great platform, our animal magnetism, or our noble bearing, but honestly we, supported by NYC Retirees, revolted against a leadership that sold us out without eliciting our input.

Eric Adams really wants to take away our Medicare. The Municipal Labor Committee, including the United Federation of Teachers, has an amicus brief supporting the city’s case. While Michael Mulgrew has announced he opposes Medicare Advantage for us, our union is, in fact, part of the case against us. The Court of Appeals is the highest court in NY State. Mulgrew has said if we lose, he’d support us, but has shown no support whatsoever in this fight.

And for goodness sake, why would anyone choose to wait until we lost in the highest possible court to take action?

In December, I suggested to the RTC Executive Board that we file our own amicus. This was immediately met with a loud “no” from a VIP Retiree Advocate member. Eleven members of Retiree Advocate, with whom I ran, unilaterally decided that only they should have voting privileges. I recently learned that they are the “steering committee.” They are self-appointed, unelected, and as far as I can tell, appointed for life. The other 288 of us who worked, ran and won positions are nobody, evidently.

After the VIP member nixed my idea, he or someone else suggested, rather than bring this up for a vote, that we delegate someone to bring this suggestion to the UFT Executive Board. I deemed that a terrible idea. The UFT Executive Board is dominated by Unity, and there are only 7 or 8 out of about a hundred who might support it.

There was absolutely zero chance Unity would approve our amicus, and we don’t require their approval.

Why then, would we be seeking it, particularly when we know how they’d respond? It would have been better to bring this to membership, who’d have overwhelmingly supported it. This would have entailed a lot of paperwork, but I know people who could have helped with that. There would also be about two thousand dollars in filing fees. We could’ve demanded UFT pay, and if they didn’t, taken up a collection. I’d certainly have contributed.

But instead, the RTC Executive Board agreed to let an RA “steering committee” member go, hat in hand, and ask Unity to support this. And how did that work out?

No one knows, because they didn’t bother to do anything. They simply broke that commitment. They failed to pursue even the ineffective action they promised. Significantly, they failed to act at all. This was a thing we could have accomplished with a little bit of will. Now, with Bentkowski shortly rearing its ugly head, we are nowhere, and just about out of time.

Let’s look also at this resolution, overwhelmingly passed by RTC. We resolved to actively support 1096, which would protect our health care in the status it was a few years back—real Medicare, with a Medigap plan and no co-pays. We overwhelmingly voted to support 1096. We said we would act.

At the very next RTC Executive Board, I came with an Action Network letter I’d prepared. I shared it with all the members. I suggested we contemplate boots on the ground actions to support our resolution. I looked up Action Network, saw there might be some fees, and figured we could kick in and pay. However, one of the eleven privileged RA “steering committee” members, who just happened to be running that meeting, suggested we table the resolution and do nothing.

On that basis, RTC has taken no action to support 1096. I hear some members discussed it in one of the Health Committee meetings. This is in stark contrast to NYC Retirees, who started a campaign that’s thus far produced over 400,000 letters. We could have consulted with them and brainstormed. We could have asked if they’d share resources. We could, in fact, have piggybacked our campaign with theirs.

The unelected RA “steering committee” opted to do nothing, and broke a commitment to membership.

This is part of a pattern that began in August or September. A group of us went to meet with Unity Big Shots in anticipation of taking over the chapter. One thing that was up for negotiation was the UFT Facebook group. Said negotiations were handled by several of the self-appointed RA “steering committee” members.

The Big Shots promised we’d take over the existing Facebook page. That seemed reasonable. Days later, though, they came back and said the page was owned by a Unity member. Therefore we would leave the page with the Unity member and start our own from scratch. Ownership of a Facebook page has little significance. Who administrates it makes a great difference.

I opposed the move, saying we should demand the official page, which had over 6,000 subscribers. I was told this is not where we make a stand. I disagreed. Knowing Unity as I do, I didn’t see making stands as optional. Making nice with them was and is an egregious error. It was now our chapter, and it was therefore our Facebook page. I was told we’d quickly exceed that number now that we controlled the page. Months later, the new page sits at 2500 members, over 3500 fewer than we should have started with.

You may have read here that Mulgrew built an actual wall to segregate the newly elected RTC leadership. I knew about this for months before writing about it. I was asked not to, because they were going to quietly negotiate it, or something. I gave them time, but when I visited the offices and saw the wall, it seemed like something members needed to know about. I took a photo and wrote it up.

I was more than willing to support RTC. I was asked to write for them. If you ask me to write something, I won’t hesitate. Someone said, “I can write faster than anyone who writes better than me, and better than anyone who writes faster than me.” I see writing kind of like that.

In any case, I wrote a piece explaining all the various lawsuits facing us and explaining what they meant, along with their current status. I submitted it, and it sat in someone’s email box for months. As time passed, and things happened, I revised it once or twice and resubmitted it. Nothing was done about it.

We’ve known since February 21st that there was a plan to postpone payments into our pension fund. It’s now been passed by the NY State Assembly.

If UFT Unity gave a golly gosh darn about us, they’d not only have alerted and educated us months ago, but also sought our input. While you may have read about it here, we’ve heard not one word from RTC. Being nice to Unity has paid no dividends as they take us for chumps, shutting us out of important decisions about our pension funds.

As the bill is not dead, it means Unity has once again snookered us, claiming to oppose this bill just as they claim to oppose MA. If they “suspended the process,” why is it being voted on? Cops and firefighters did not sign onto this. We can’t accept Unity’s excuses, and we can’t let them off the hook.

As this bill is making its way through the legislature, it’s clear Unity’s sudden apparent rejection of it means nothing whatsoever. Of course they can say, “Well, it’s not our fault,” and expect us to accept that. But we cannot accept that.

We have to stop treating them as though they are on the level. We cannot be nice to them and hope for the best anymore.

Like the NYC Retirees, we have to stand tough at each and every juncture. We can no longer avoid ruffling feathers. That’s far from the approach Unity takes with us. Appeasement is not how you win when facing a bully.

Let’s tell our RTC leadership that we want action representing the will of membership. Our membership opposes the city/ MLC position on Bentkowski. Our membership supports 1096. Leadership needs to enable and advance our voice.

UFT Unity is a stumbling block. They are not our leadership, we rejected them conclusively, and it’s time to stop pussyfooting around them.

Please sign our petition demanding our RTC take action. We voted for change and have every right to expect it.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/action-letter-concern-over-recent-pension-deferral-proposal-and-stronger-advocacy-for-retiree-healthcare-and-intro-1096

Correction—I’m now told the bill did NOT pass the Assembly, but it rather in a collection of bills they have not blocked, but have not voted on either.