“As
a chapter, we support 1096,” retiree chapter President Bennett Fischer,
elected in June 2024 on the Retiree Advocate slate, tells Work-Bites.
The chapter passed a resolution backing the bill, but the UFT legal
department, he explains, told him he could not use any union platform,
such as the chapter’s UFT.org email address, to support a position
that’s not the union’s official stance, such as providing information
about how to lobby Councilmembers for 1096.“Everything I write on official union email is vetted,” Fischer says, including review by Mulgrew’s office. ...Under My Thumb: UFT Head Keeps a Lid on Retirees’ Push for Intro. 1096
Wednesday, Sept. 24 - Happy Rosh Hashanah
On the surface, the city council 1096 bill and the new UFT healthcare plan have no formal relationship but under the surface they are linked. Retirees think that if the UFT opposes a bill to protect us, why trust them on the new healthcare plan?
I've been trying to follow the back and forth over the new healthcare system. I've been too busy to dig into the details, so I count on trusted people to fill in. Among the oppo groups there is also come confusion. But I am voting NO at the Sept. 29 DA and don't need no stick'n details about the plan. I have no confidence the leadership is dealing in good faith.
MORE took a VOTE NO position: MORE (Why are UFT Chapter Leaders and Delegates in the Delegate Assembly Voting No on the Proposed Changes to Our Healthcare?
New Action didn't endorse the new healthcare but took a wait and see attitude of further study: (Some Initial Thoughts and Questions About the New Healthcare Proposal)
While the dozen member Retiree Advocate caucus, which dominates the 25-member Retiree UFT Chapter Executive Board, didn't take a formal position, 4 members who attended the August 28 healthcare committee meeting which voted unanimously to accept the plan, have caused some consternation within the retiree community where mistrust of Mulgrew and the Unity leadership has been intense for the past 4 years. At the Sept. 16 RTC 25 member Exec Bd meeting, there was some push back but two key members of RA and NAC made an impassioned defense of their YES Vote, claiming they were defending the younger than 65 retirees who would be covered under the plan and would now get national coverage if they lived out of state. Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer was more neutral in his position, trying to point to the good, the bad and the ugly. No one expressed much confidence in the UFT leaders.
What about ABC? While there has been intense internal debate on the chats since the August 28 sketchy release of the plan, and though the overwhelming majority of people commenting are for a NO vote, there has been no formal position taken. That is more due to the fundamental lack of structure withing the ABC community at this point where lots of people get to chime in but we have not yet decided on formalities or norms. I'm still the only Norm.
As I write, some ABCers are working on producing some leaflets with a variety of points of view -- a key point being made is that a lack of full info from the UFT should lead to a No vote, a version of SHOW US THE MONEY.
I have gathered some of these comments and links to article to offer a flavor of some of the thinking and will follow up with a deeper dive on all the group dynamics.
Please share this valuable stream that Marianne just conducted. She
discusses the history and role of the MLC, how it's been diminishing all
our municipal benefits, and why the recent active & pre-Medicare
healthcare full contract must be scrutinized.
And
If you fast-forward to ~33:05, Marianne reports how it was just
revealed through DC37 minutes that the MLC intends to re-bid GHI Senior
Care after the active & pre-Medicare gets settled
From Marianne:
Join
me speaking with Council Member Chris Marte about his run for Council
Speaker and his platform. You can find it on his website as well:https://www.marte4speaker.com/ We need #democracy and #transparency in government! The B Block of our show has Guest Joe Maniscalco, an independent journalist from Work-Bites https://www.work-bites.com/support speaking about the latest articles he produced on Labor in NY and nationwide
Workbites https://www.work-bites.com/view-all/mulgrew1096lid?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=68d173396139817a383b5247&ss_email_id=68d1756cb6bc5272583667d7&ss_campaign_name=Under+My+Thumb%3A+UFT+Head+Keeps+a+Lid+on+Retirees%E2%80%99+&ss_campaign_sent_date=2025-09-22T16%3A12%3A37Z
Despite Mayor Adams abandoning the Medicare Advantage push—at least for
now—DC37 Executive Director Henry Garrido and UFT President Michael
Mulgrew continue to oppose the bill protecting the Medicare benefits
retirees earned on the job. New York City municipal retirees are seen
here rallying outside the offices of District Council 37 this past
December in support of Intro. 1096—legislation sponsored by Council
Member Chris Marte.
By Steve Wishnia
More
than a year after United Federation of Teachers members angry about
being switched into profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan unseated the union’s dominant Unity caucus from leading its retirees chapter—the chapter’s ability to advocate for preserving their traditional Medicare has been tightly-restricted.
President
Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership have backed away from wanting
for-profit Medicare Advantage plans to be the only premium-free
health-care option for retirees—but the union continues to oppose Intro 1096,
a bill in the City Council that would require the city to keep offering
retired city workers a premium-free combination of Medicare and
supplemental insurance to cover the 20% of bills Medicare doesn’t pay.
“As
a chapter, we support 1096,” retiree chapter President Bennett Fischer,
elected in June 2024 on the Retiree Advocate slate, tells Work-Bites.
The chapter passed a resolution backing the bill, but the UFT legal
department, he explains, told him he could not use any union platform,
such as the chapter’s UFT.org email address, to support a position
that’s not the union’s official stance, such as providing information
about how to lobby Councilmembers for 1096.
“Everything I write on official union email is vetted,” Fischer says, including review by Mulgrew’s office.
The
UFT opposes the bill, a spokesperson said in a statement, “because it
is illegal. It would violate the state Taylor Law and potentially
interfere with labor contract negotiations. It has the potential to
cause great harm to city employees rather than help them.” They did not
go into details on other issues.
Mulgrew called ‘dictatorial’
Many
retirees and active union members criticize Mulgrew’s leadership style
as “dictatorial.” Since he won re-election as union president in May
with 54% of the vote, he’s fired at least 10 union staffers, including
Amy Arundell, who’d come in second with 32% of the vote, running on the
ABC (A Better Contract) slate. Another dissident slate, ARISE, got 14%.
“It
was a purge,” Arundell says. “They don’t want freethinkers in the UFT.”
Two of the staffers fired, she says, were her close colleagues, but had
not been involved in the election.
Another was Migda Rodriguez, vice chair of the union’s paraprofessionals chapter, who’d also run on the ABC slate.
Arundell
was Queens borough representative until October 2023, when she was
ousted after a dispute over the wording of the union’s resolution on the
Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, which she felt was too one-sided in favor of
Israel. She was moved to what she calls a “fake job” as assistant to the
president for member organizing.
She
says she’s long been a target of Mulgrew’s “wrath,” going back to 2020
when she questioned his decision to have the UFT’s advice hotline
outsourced to a Salesforce call center, which she says made it “very
difficult to talk to knowledgeable people.” Teachers with specific
school-based questions had to talk to foreign operators working from a
script.
The
union’s decision to switch retirees to Medicare Advantage was
unilateral, Arundell adds. “He didn’t discuss this with anyone on
staff,” she says. “We all found out about it through the [article in
the] Chief.”
After
the retirees chapter “overwhelmingly” passed the resolution endorsing
Intro 1096, the normal procedure would have been to bring it to the full
union’s Delegate Assembly, says Gail Lindenberg, one of the 300 retiree
delegates. But Mulgrew “has arranged that it never gets heard,” she
continues: He runs the meetings, and “he never calls on certain people.”
Dissidents
also say that in August, when the UFT’s health committee approved the
city’s recent health-care proposal for active members and retirees not
yet old enough for Medicare, its members got only minimal information
about what was actually in the plan.
Dissident criticisms
Opposition
to Unity, however, is divided among several groups, including Retiree
Advocate, ABC, New Action, the more leftist MORE, and ARISE, some of
which have aligned with Unity in the past.
Several
people involved in organizing against Medicare Advantage feel that
Retiree Advocate leadership has not been aggressive enough. Marianne
Pizzitola, whose New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees
spearheaded the litigation to preserve traditional Medicare, calls it
“very disappointing.”
“We
were elected to preserve the rights of retirees. That’s got to be
paramount,” says Arthur Goldstein, a retired high-school teacher aligned
with the ABC caucus. The retiree chapter, he argues, could have filed
an amicus brief in the Bentkowski case—in which the state Court
of Appeals in June reversed a lower-court ruling that the city had made
a “clear and unambiguous promise” to its employees that it would cover
their Medicare supplemental insurance for life. (The decision sent the
case back to the lower courts to determine whether any of the
plaintiffs’ other claims are valid.)
Goldstein
has dismissed the UFT leadership’s claims that a city law preserving
retirees’ Medicare would violate the state Taylor Law and interfere with
collective bargaining as “absurd.” Retirees, he wrote on Substack in
June, obviously can’t violate the Taylor Law’s ban on public employees
striking, and they also “have neither voice nor vote in collective
bargaining.”
The
new retiree leadership “struggled with the union not cooperating,” says
Arundell. “They’re conflict-averse and didn’t know how to handle the
UFT’s hostility to them, so they took a more conciliatory approach.”
“I’m
concentrating on doing the best job I can for our chapter,” Fischer
responds. That means “opposing Unity when we have to, but also working
with them when we find areas of agreement.”
Fischer
says that the chapter got the UFT leadership to reverse its stance on
Medicare Advantage, although he feels it’s trying to neutralize
opposition. They also have an open mic for questions at meetings. “We
don’t control it the way Unity does,” he says.
He
also contends that their winning control of the retirees chapter in
last year’s election made it untenable for mayoral candidates to support
Medicare Advantage. On the other hand, Pizzitola, Goldstein, and
Lindenberg all criticize Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani for not
endorsing Intro 1096, and not meeting with retiree groups opposed to it.
The
Trump regime, Fischer notes, has just introduced a pilot program to
have Medicare require prior authorization— “the worst part of Medicare
Advantage”—for certain procedures in six states. Two of those six, New
Jersey and Arizona, have significant numbers of UFT retirees.
Pizzitola
says Intro 1096 is still crucial because it “would truly protect us” —
unlike Mayor Eric Adams’s statement that he won’t implement Medicare
Advantage “at this time.”
“We can’t wait forever. We’re sick,” says Lindenberg.
------
They're better than new!
It’s election time, folks, and I am dealing. I have to unload these babies, and I’ll do whatever it takes . You came at the right time. I am moving tin
like never before! Now sure, a lot of you are saying oh, that I
bankrupted the health stabilization fund, and that I tried to sell the
retirees a real lemon. Sure they kind of rose up against me, but those
times are over with.
I have a real doozy of an auto to sell
rank and file, along with retirees under the age of 65. I’ll get to
that, but let me just help these folks here. Every minute at King Mike’s
Used Cars is another surprise.
You look like
paraprofessionals, and here’s a real beauty, folks. This one is called
the Respect Car. It contains ten thousand dollars in cash. All you have
to do is vote for Unity and it’s yours. And hey, summer’s coming. You
could take a fabulous vacation for ten thousand bucks. No, it doesn’t come with a pension.
We did have a model that came with a pension, and you’d have it now. Only we decided to share that model with everyone. So everyone got three thousand bucks. But because you make so little money, it would seem
like more to you. Do you see how that works? You see? Less is more. To
you, anyway. And after taxes, three thousand bucks is two thousand
bucks. But maybe, because you make so little money, you pay less taxes.
So you get more! You see? It’s a WIN-WIN?
Yes, I passed on that model
with the pension, but this is a much better deal. Do you think I’d lie
to you just to keep my job? What possible motivation would I have to do
that?
Now you look like a
retiree. Now another car salesman might hate you sons of bitches for
voting against me last year. Another salesman might call you a
conspiracy theorist, or an enemy of the union, or say you’re spouting
fairy tales. But once I lost the election, I saw the light. Hallelujah.
That’s why I stopped calling this baby here Medicare Advantage. Instead,
I’m calling it a bill of goods, and I’m ready to deal. I’ve got some
extras I will throw in just for you.
Hey, I know you don’t like those co-pays I sold you last time. I feel really bad about it. I know, I said they were temporary, and I lied. But I don’t lie all the time. So hey, live a little. Take a chance! And if you buy today, I’ve got a very special deal for you. I’ll give you refunds on seven, seven of them. That’s more than five! It’s more than six! It’s more than 6.5! And that 105 bucks in your pocket!
Now
sure, there’s a mountain of paperwork involved. Because this is such a
special deal, you can’t simply send the bill and a receipt. We’re gonna
need an itemized list of exactly what was treated. Screw HIPPA regs.
We’re gonna need to know every embarrassing personal detail. And trust
us, we won’t giggle about it in the office, as far as you know. Also, it
won’t show up in a Unity Substack, probably.
Oh, and
online receipts are not acceptable, so we’ll need to see your credit
card bill. Don’t worry, we won’t do anything with it. After all, we’re a
business. If you’re too nervous to share that with strangers, tough noogies. Just because we don’t trust you is no reason for you to assume that you can’t trust us.
I’ve
got a very special deal for you today, folks. This is the one I call
the new health care plan. What’s great about this deal is we’ve already
made it for you. No, you can’t test-drive it. No, you can’t see inside
of it. No, you can’t have an independent mechanic check it out. No, you
don’t get to decide anything whatsoever about it. That’s the beauty of
it. It’s all been decided for you.
Here at Mike’s Used Cars, we
make deals no one else would. Instead of having you look at the car, we
have a committee that looks at it for you. You’ll be pleased to know
that my Unity employees hand-picked the committee, and approved of
absolutely every member. That’s how we made sure this was a quality
committee.
Everyone on the committee decided that this car was excellent,
the best car ever. Why, we even let them look at parts of the car. Now
sure, they won’t get to see the whole care until they own it, but hey,
parts of cars are private, and no one should get to see them until they
frigging own them. Here at King Mike’s Used Cars, we have Very Smart
People, and they all agree no one should see the whole car until it’s sold.
And hey, this car has an excellent warranty, good for one full year.
If the car manages to save the city a billion dollars the first year,
then it stays as is. If it does not, we’ll have to take some parts away.
However, you’ve never seen the whole car anyway, so you surely will not
notice.
Now depending on which neighborhoods you drive
the car in, we may have to charge extra. Some neighborhoods are more
expensive than others. But if you only drive in neighborhoods we
recommend, you’ll do just fine.
And hey, this car is self-funded,
which means we aren’t bound by state or national safety requirements.
However, we plan to observe all of them. Unless, of course, the city
doesn’t save that billion by year’s end, in which case, all bets are
off.
And hey, don’t fret over that, because our hand-picked
committee voted 100% to sell you this car. This should give you a lot of
confidence. We only had Very Smart People on this committee, and if
they decide to sell you this car, then this is the car you will be
driving.
And we have to warn you—if you don’t
take this car, we can’t guarantee that hunk of junk you’ve been
driving. You’ll probably be stuck with huge repair bills you never had
before. But with this car, we promise you one full year of carefree driving, paying only the expenses you’ve been paying already.
Now
who’s gonna make a better deal than that? If you want to check our
credentials, come to our website. We wrote the credentials ourselves,
and they look excellent. The only place you should be buying used cars
is King Mike’s.
And anyway, I personally fired everyone who
tried to buy a car anywhere else. So basically your choice is take it or
leave it. Also, if you choose to leave it, too bad for you. Only King
Mike’s Used Car Delegate Assembly gets to vote on it, and I’ll fire anyone who votes no. You don’t get a vote, so stop demanding one.
Here
at King Mike’s, we know what’s best for you. And if you get any of our
employees to ask real questions about this car, the one we aren’t
allowing you to see, we’ll fire their asses too.
Remember,
we value your business. That’s why, when you call us, we direct your
call to some frigging corporation and make you wait forever. Thank you
for choosing Mike’s, whether you like it or not.
And remember, if you don’t buy our frigging car, we can always dump you old folks, the ones we openly ridicule,
into Medicare Advantage again! Sure, we say we’re against it, but
we’ve battled tooth and nail to make sure you couldn’t pass 1096, so we
at King Mike’s retain that option. All we have to do is get our rubber
stamp DA to vote for it.
We’ve got you coming and going. And remember, here at King Mike’s, we may be cheap, but we are most certainly for sale!.
===
The PSC on the proposed health care plan:
Bottom line from the PSC Summary: Current plan participants are likely
to see little change in their coverage if the new plan is approved at
least for 2026, the first year of the five-year contract. In most
instances, participants will be able to access the same providers they
currently see and will not experience a significant increase in costs,
if any. However, without being able to review the financial elements of
the plan, including the City's exact cost-reduction targets, we cannot
know whether the City will seek to change the plan design after 2026.
For that reason, the PSC Delegate Assembly voted that the union refrain
from supporting the proposed plan at the September 30 MLC vote. What we
will support, however, is ongoing member education so that current
participants can make an informed decision during the Open Enrollment
period.
See the whole PSC meeting with members here:
=====
What’s Happening to Our Healthcare?
New York City and Municipal Labor Committee (MLC)
negotiators have proposed a replacement for the Emblem (GHI) - Anthem
(Blue Cross) health benefits plan that currently covers medical and
hospital services for about 70% of CUNY active employees (full-time and
insured adjuncts and part-timers) and pre-65 retirees and their
dependents. The MLC is the coalition of public-sector unions that
negotiates healthcare with the City. Called the New York City Employees
PPO, the new plan would be administered by Emblem and United Healthcare.
It is slated to begin January 1, 2026, if it is approved by the MLC.
If the proposed
plan is implemented, employees enrolled in other health insurance plans
offered by the City (e.g. HIP HMO plan) and retirees 65 and older on
Medicare will not be affected. Prescription drug coverage, dental,
glasses and hearing aids, and other supplementary health benefits
provided by the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund will not change. Like the
current Emblem (GHI) plan, the NYCEPPO will be premium-free. Additional
information about networks and copays, maximum in-network out-of-pocket
costs, and more, are posted here on the PSC website,
along with a new PSC summary, a chart from the MLC comparing the
proposed plan and the current plan, and a form where PSC members can
submit questions. We don’t have all the details yet. As we get answers
to broadly applicable questions, we will post them on the website in an
FAQs section. An Open Enrollment period from November 1-30 will allow
PSC members to change insurance plans as needed.
Bottom line from the PSC Summary: Current plan
participants are likely to see little change in their coverage if the
new plan is approved at least for 2026, the first year of the five-year
contract. In most instances, participants will be able to access the
same providers they currently see and will not experience a significant
increase in costs, if any. However, without being able to review the
financial elements of the plan, including the City's exact
cost-reduction targets, we cannot know whether the City will seek to
change the plan design after 2026. For that reason, the PSC Delegate
Assembly voted that the union refrain from supporting the proposed plan
at the September 30 MLC vote. What we will support, however, is ongoing
member education so that current participants can make an informed
decision during the Open Enrollment period.
------
Dear Friends
City
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who has blocked many vital hearings,
bills, and retaliated against City Councilmembers who disagree with her,
is in a rush to change City Council rules before her term is up this
January.
As many of us have been learning, a City Council
Speaker gets elected by City Councilmembers usually through a hushed
process - which has kept most of us citizens in the dark until their
replacements are announced. And it seems this election will take place
sooner than expected
It's
thrilling that District 1 City Councilmember Christopher Marte has
publicly thrown his hat into the race for Speaker. He's running on a
powerful platform to ensure transparency and empowering our lawmakers to
advocate for issues that matter to their citizens instead of being at
the mercy of a Speaker.
ICYMI,
I've attached a NY Daily News opinion piece published today that
reveals how Speaker Adrienne Adams is working fast to change City
Council rules before
a new Speaker takes office. FYI: Her rules intend to diminish the
autonomy of lawmakers, our voices, and make the passage of important
bills like intro 1096 harder to achieve.
----
Speaker Adams’ 11th hour rules: City Council rules should not be changed in waning days
PUBLISHED: September 22, 2025 at 4:00 AM EDT
The City Council Rules Committee is set to have a hearing this morning
on what they are calling “the most comprehensive revision of the Rules
of the Council since 2014.” With only 100 days remaining for Speaker
Adrienne Adams and Rules Committee Chair Keith Powers and other
term-limited members, the matter should be tabled until the new Council,
new speaker and new Rules chair take office in the new year.
The last big change in the Council’s rules was in May 2014,
which occurred only after months of public debate. The impetus was the
2013 elections and a new speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Councilman
Brad Lander as the new chair of the Rules Committee. During the five
months following Mark-Viverito’s January installation, there was a great
deal of back and forth and discussion led by Lander, as there should
have been for such an important measure, regarding how the local
legislature operates.
Adams wasn’t around for that, having first been elected in 2017 and
taking office as a freshman in 2018, but if she was she would have seen
the correct way to proceed.
Instead, the proposed rules were published just four days ago and go
before the committee today. And the 44-page resolution and accompanying
141-page report have been placed by Adams on the
Council’s agenda for this coming Thursday to finalize the changes. Such a rushed, slapdash procedure is no good.
Adams has been speaker for three years and nearly nine months, so why
with just 100 days remaining in her tenure, is this happening now? Far
better to leave it for the next Council and the next speaker.
If the staff of the Council is the answer to why now, sorry folks, the unelected staff is exactly that: unelected.
Adams and the Council staff, such as the top lawyer, Jason Otaño,
already tried this month to get the Board of Elections to remove three
questions meant to spur housing construction from the general election
ballot and it was only the intervention of the governor that stopped them.
The speaker should not sully further the past four years by jamming through some changes to hand over to the new speaker.
What this Council and this speaker can, and should, do is pass a worthy transparency improvement to how the city handles Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests for public records.
Under the bill, which has more than two dozen cosponsors, the city Department of Records and Information Services
would create a centralized FOIL request website to receive, track,
update, and post responses to agency FOIL requests. Then the taxpaying
public could easily see how agencies from Sanitation to the FDNY to the
NYPD to every branch of city government are processing FOIL requests and
how quickly (or slowly) they take to respond.
That is a far better way for Adams to wrap up her time as speaker,
making government more open and accessible to the people it is supposed
to be serving.
As for the Council rules changes, file them away and let the next
speaker and the next Council, who take office on Jan. 1, debate and
decide what should be the best way for them to operate instead of it
being imposed on them. Four years ago, incoming Speaker Adams wasn’t
given a new set of rules by her predecessor when she started, so why
should her successor be so weighed down?
I
am leaning more and more to the opinion that the proposed self funded
health plan cannot live up to the sales pitch that 1) the city will
save $, 2) the health insurance companies will continue to profit, and
3) the premium free plan will be protected if not enhanced. The claim
is not a credible one but will likely be adopted by the UFT DA and the
MLC who have presented this to the working membership as a way to save
premium free health insurance with the added bonus of an expanded
network of doctors for out of state members under 65. If it sounds too
good to be true, it likely is. The alternative is outlined in the Chief
article below although it still leaves out of state members under 65
without coverage.
Sincerely,
Sean Ahern
Workers can strike back with the New York Health Act
Members
of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, holding signs in support of
Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy, marched up Fifth Avenue during the
Labor Day Parade on Fifth Avenue Sept. 6.
Olga Fedorova/AP Photo
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2025 1:32 pm
BY DAMIEN ARCHBOLD
Dr. Damien Archbold is an anesthesiologist at Elmhurst Hospital and a Doctors Council SEIU delegate.
Carter
Myers-Brown aptly describes how industry-sponsored authoritarians have
pushed workers into a corner and intend to land the final blow on public
health (“The final blow to American healthcare,” The Chief, Commentary, Aug. 29).
Have hope: New Yorkers aren’t defenseless. We have a muscular piece of legislation — the New York Health Act (NYHA) — that gets workers out of the corner and unleashes our power to fight back.
The
NYHA would establish a single-payer health system in New York. Every
resident would be covered, regardless of job status. It would end the
stranglehold of employer-sponsored insurance, giving workers leverage
that’s been stripped away for decades. No more fear of striking and
losing coverage. No more job lock. No more bosses dangling health
benefits to keep us quiet.
United
Healthcare and Emblem, Eric Adams and the MLC have brokered a new
health plan for 750,000 municipal workers and their families. United
Healthcare is notorious for enriching CEOs and shareholders by denying
and delaying care. The public response to a United Healthcare CEO being
shot in broad daylight in Manhattan unbottled widespread disgust at
health industry practices.
Now
is the moment: municipal workers must demand that their union officials
stop cutting backroom deals and instead force Albany to pass the NYHA.
The
numbers are clear. A 2018 RAND study projected the NYHA would save New
Yorkers an average of $2,800 a year while creating 180,000 jobs. It
would replace premiums and out-of-pocket costs with a progressive tax,
relieve employers of managing benefits and let health workers focus on
patients instead of billing codes. Even Warren Buffett called healthcare
costs the “tapeworm” of the American economy. The NYHA is the
treatment.
As
a doctor at a Queens public hospital since 2019, I see how chronic
understaffing and defunding affects patients every day. One ER physician
covering 50 patients. Surgeries delayed because of lack of capacity.
Stretchers stacked in hallways. Moral injury and constant staff
turnover. During the COVID19 surge, public hospitals - already weakened
by decades of closures and privatization - were pushed past the brink.
Patients who relied on NYC Health + Hospitals suffered and died disproportionately.
Now,
the Adams administration, District Council 37 Executive Director Henry
Garrido, and the United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew
want to lock municipal workers into a new 5-year United
Healthcare/Emblem plan claiming that it would save the city $1 billion a
year in municipal healthcare costs. They’ve promised “premium-free”
coverage, but we all know how this works: the MLC works with the city to
suppress wages to maintain the illusion of free benefits, then degrades
those very benefits. Workers pay twice — once in stagnant wages, again
in worse care.
This
is the quiet bargain our union officials have struck: lower wages in
exchange for healthcare that is increasingly segregated, separate and
unequal, but keeps them in charge. 750,000 municipal workers and their
families crowded into a fragmented and declining public system, while
the 1 percent retreat to concierge doctors and tax-exempt “non-profit”
health systems, who lobby Albany to keep the status quo. Unless we
change how healthcare is funded, conditions for both workers and
patients will only spiral downward.
That’s why we need the NYHA now.
Politicians
tell us they won’t back the bill because the city’s largest unions
don’t support it. Mulgrew’s and Garrido’s refusals give Albany cover to
stall. Meanwhile, municipal workers endure stagnant wages, eroded
benefits and health schemes engineered by for-profit insurers and city
hall to keep workers under their thumb.
But rank-and-file workers aren’t powerless. We’ve already seen cracks in the old order. DC37 members pushed the union to endorse Zohran Mamdani ahead
of the Democratic primary — proof that grassroots organizing can push
ossified unions. Mamdani ran on affordability; municipal workers can’t
afford rent and groceries because raises are traded off for healthcare.
Passing
the NYHA would take healthcare off the bargaining table entirely. That
would empower us to fight for what truly matters: raises that beat
inflation, safe staffing, real workplace democracy, and a resilient
public health system that serves every New Yorker as a provider and
employer of choice — not of last resort.
The
choice is clear. Accept industry-backed deals that sell out our
families’ health, or demand a system designed for workers, patients and
the public. If municipal workers reject the MLC’s plan and organize for
the NYHA, we can strike a decisive blow against the tyrants and
billionaires who use employer-sponsored health benefits to weaken and
divide us.
It’s time for city workers to get off the ropes and strike back with the New York Health Act.
