A Better Contract on the Proposed UFT Healthcare Deal - UFT Members Need Transparency On Healthcare

We demand the full contract language, every single detail, and a chance to hear directly from the negotiators who cut this healthcare deal in our name. This is our healthcare, our families, and our shared future. We cannot allow Unity to gamble with our lives in backroom deals ... Be informed, be independent of what Michael Mulgrew and Unity Caucus tell you to think and do, and make the choice that protects you and the UFT members you serve..... ABC

Healthcare is not an abstract policy issue or some political football. It is not a bargaining chip. It is not a spreadsheet of “savings.”It is life and death for us, for our families, for our dependents.... Educators of NYC

• A Pig in a Poke: What's in the new health plan?- Arthur Goldstein - Unity, who’s lied to us before, is asking us to trust them.

   Is anyone insisting that those who can’t attend the meeting be allowed to view on zoom especially since they say the meeting is at capacity? Maybe we should have this meeting at a larger venue so everyone who wants can come. Why don’t the use the rooms upstairs like they used to for DA overspill and observers? The Union leadership wants to discourage this vote... a retiree 

  From a retiree: I just listened to a Marianne update. She said Mulgrew is going to an MLC meeting at 9 to vote on the healthcare contract. But the DA is not until the afternoon.  What's up with that? See Marianne video on Monday MLC Steering Meeting   

Friday, Sept. 26, 2025

Yeah, what's up with that? Will Mulgrew cast a UFT vote BEFORE the DA at the MLC? 

 

And I'm hearing from retired delegates who tried to register immediately and were told it was full. I did get in in person and will do a head count of all the staffers who got in, including some so-called high school exec bd members who won election with 35% of the vote, the lowest "winning" total in UFT history.

 

It's the proud fear mongerer here, preparing for Monday's Delegate Assembly vote on the new healthcare issue. 

 

After almost a month of internal debate, ABC has come up with a statement that reflects the variety of opinions on the healthcare issue within the broad group, while any individual - like me - is free to disagree - and I say vote NO. 

 

As does Daniel Alicea from Educators of NYC: 

The 3 big reasons to vote NO!!! 

Why UFT Chapter Leaders and Delegates Must Vote “NO” on the NYC Employees PPO Plan

Taken together, these three reasons — the missing contracts, the reckless self-funded gamble, and Mulgrew’s record of betrayal — all point to one unavoidable conclusion: this plan cannot be trusted.

https://thewire.educators.nyc/p/why-uft-chapter-leaders-and-delegates

There's lots of fodder in the ABC statement to justify a NO vote and MORE has also taken a NO vote position for its chapter leaders. MORE (Why are UFT Chapter Leaders and Delegates in the Delegate Assembly Voting No on the Proposed Changes to Our Healthcare?

 

Now here is where member-driven ABC differs from a proclamation like MORE made, as evidenced below: LET YOUR CHAPTER DISCUSS AND VOTE. Yet how do they do that without at least having access to the entire document which has redacted parts from what I hear (what are they hiding.)

 

But retiree delegates are in a different situation and Retiree Advocate's 300 delegates have been chiming in, with the ABC crew leaning a strong NO while the other caucuses represented - have been more ambivalent, as I wrote about this the other day: 

• UFT New Healthcare Pushback - Members comment and the overall sense is VOTE NO, While Lack of UFT/Unity Support for Bill 1096 Causes Suspicion.

A number of the 300 retiree delegates are not associated with a caucus or organized group - in the case of ABC, semi-organized - and there is a large group of delegates who have been associated with NYC Retirees and Marianne Pizzitola and they seem a definite NO. Some others in the leadership of RTC want to be seen as the "responsible" opposition who do not automatically question a UFT leadership presentation like so many of us do. 

 

The PSC summary:  

• https://psc-cuny.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Proposed-NYC-Health-Plan-PSC-Summary.pdf

Here is the entire ABC statement - click on the title to take you to the site if you want to leave a comment. 

UFT Members Need Transparency On Healthcare- A Statement from A Better Contract on the Proposed UFT Healthcare Deal

A Better Contract

Sep 25, 2025

The proud educators and UFT members, both in-service and retirees, who ran with A Better Contract (ABC) are not so careless or reckless as to tell UFT Chapter Leaders and Delegates how to vote on this proposed healthcare deal. That is not our job — and it certainly should not be the job of Unity Caucus leadership, the political machine that has controlled our UFT for over 60 years and now serves only the whims of Michael Mulgrew.

Our job is to stand up for rank-and-file educators and demand real transparency, something Mulgrew and Unity have avoided for years. Every UFT member deserves all the facts before any vote — not just Unity’s scripted talking points and social media propaganda.

UFT members must be told:

• Why did the Delegate Assembly of PSC-CUNY — the union representing professors and staff at the City University of New York — commit to vote NO on this deal? Why did PSC-CUNY not have access to “the financial elements of the plan, the exact cost-reduction targets, and whether the City will seek to make changes after 2026.”?
  PSC-CUNY: Union-Wide Forum on Proposed Health Plan
  

• The serious concerns raised by Marianne Pizzitola, president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, who has been fighting tirelessly to stop City Hall and Unity from forcing retirees into private Medicare Advantage plans. Marianne has raised the issue of a tiered network of hospitals within this proposed healthcare plan.
  NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees: Proposed Health Plan for NYC Active Workers & NON MEDICARE Retirees
  

• Why should we trust Unity Caucus to negotiate a fair deal after years of failed leadership and backroom deals? It is Unity Caucus that stood by and allowed Tier 6, continues to allow paraprofessionals to be underpaid (where is the promised $10,000?), and even attempted to cut retiree healthcare without a membership vote.
  The Chief Leader: The City’s Medicare Advantage Ruse
  

• How can we trust the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), of which Michael Mulgrew is Executive Vice Chair, to effectively run this new self-funded healthcare plan in partnership with the City? The MLC and the City recently bankrupted the Healthcare Stabilization Fund (HSF), which existed for decades to protect our healthcare costs. This has impacted all City employees, and has even left 9/11 widows and orphans without critical medical payments. If the City and MLC cannot even protect 9/11 families, why should we believe they will effectively protect us?
  NY Daily News: NYC Stiffing 9/11 Widows and Orphans of Critical Medical Payments
  

Instead of providing real answers to these questions and concerns, Mulgrew sends his district reps and “special assistants to the president” — Unity loyalists whose main skills are propagandizing in our union hall and on social media — to pressure UFT members into a yes vote.

Let us be clear: these Unity loyalists are political operatives, not healthcare experts. They have no business telling anyone how to vote on something this important.

We demand the full contract language, every single detail, and a chance to hear directly from the negotiators who cut this healthcare deal in our name. This is our healthcare, our families, and our shared future. We cannot allow Unity to gamble with our lives in backroom deals.

UFT members, form your own judgement. Talk with your chapter, your colleagues, and your family. Ask hard questions and demand straight answers. Tell your Chapter Leader and Delegate(s) how to best represent you at the UFT Delegate Assembly on September 29. This is where the vote will be taken to approve or deny the proposed healthcare plan.

If you are a UFT Chapter Leader or Delegate, engage with the UFT members of your chapter. Hold a chapter meeting to provide information and answer questions and concerns of the membership. Follow the will of your chapter members. When the time comes to vote on September 29 at the UFT Delegate Assembly, vote with full knowledge and in the best interest of the UFT members you represent — not with fear, spin, or pressure from Unity Caucus insiders.

Be informed, be independent of what Michael Mulgrew and Unity Caucus tell you to think and do, and make the choice that protects you and the UFT members you serve.