New Action – UFT

Tier 6ers have it rough. We have to work for larger portions of our lifetimes and contribute to our pensions fat higher rates, only to receive fewer proportional benefits if we even make it to the absurd minimum retirement age of 63. But, many of us will stick it out, and will therefore receive medical care under whatever system is left for retirees. So, Tier 6 needs to care about what’s going on with retiree healthcare right now. As it turns out, Tier 6ers and younger Tier 4ers stand to lose the most if City Administrative Code 12-126 is changed.

• Additional payroll deductions will hurt Tier 6 the most. There’s been a lot of propaganda about 12-126. We’ve been threatened that if we don’t get it changed, and if retirees aren’t switched over to a Medicare Advantage program (MAP), currently active DOE employees will have to start paying premiums. But, 12-126 literally exists to protect both in-service and retired members from paying premiums up to the HIP benchmark. By amending the City’s requirement to provide for our healthcare, we’d essentially be ensuring the existence of premiums by the midpoint of our careers. Tier 6ers already have to worry about huge deductions from our check to contribute towards our pensions for our entire careers (something most Tier 4ers got to stop worrying about by year 10); we can’t afford to have medical insurance costs deducted from our checks as well. And that’s one big reason that we need 12-126 preserved as is. 
• Medicare Advantage is already bad now; it will be worse when Tier 6 retires. When Tier 6ers retire, we don’t want lower quality Medicare Advantage programs, with their restricted networks, history of corruption, and Kafkaesque business model of delaying/denying care. Those issues are already bad now, but by the time we retire, they can only be worse. A group of brave retirees didn’t want these issues either, so they fought the move and won (temporarily) based on the language of Administrative Code 12-126. That’s why UFT leadership wants to change the code now: because that’s the quickest way for them to deliver the City the money they owe and get the ball rolling on a privatized Medicare Advantage program.
• Amending 12-126 is a permanent change based on a temporary program. Even if you think Medicare Advantage is no big deal, the only reason the MLC is pushing it is because the federal government will cover the City’s portion of retiree healthcare if (and only if) they switch retirees over to a privatized Medicare Advantage program. The catch? That program isn’t necessarily going to last. We’re talking about permanently eliminating the City’s obligation to pay for retiree healthcare based on a federal program that could dry up tomorrow. And if the Feds get their way and everyone is moved out of traditional Medicare and put onto managed care plans operated by private insurers, do you really think they’ll keep up the incentive? I for one don’t see why they’d bother. And I don’t want to leave my healthcare up to the whims of a Congress that is far less progressive than our City Council.

So that’s why Tier 6ers should support keeping Administrative Code 12-126 as is. Any savings the City makes will be a short-term gain. By the time we retire, we can be pretty much certain that no one will be paying for our healthcare anymore. And that means we’ll be the ones paying it. There’s only one way to prevent us from losing what little we’re getting in our pensions to healthcare costs – and that’s by keeping the City responsible for paying them. One way to make that happen? Keep 12-126 as is. So write your council member today, and better yet – submit written testimony in today’s  hearings.

Dear Council Members,

My name is Nick Bacon. I’m a constituent of District 7. I’m also a city worker and a member of the UFT Executive Board. I understand that the leadership of my organization (the UFT) has been lobbying the City Council to change Administrative Code 12-126. Please understand that they never consulted membership on taking this position. There was never a vote. Many informed members, such as myself, strongly disagree with the UFT leadership’s move here. Indeed, Administrative Code 12-126 protects both in-service and retired members from paying premiums on healthcare that we and our families need. No matter what rhetoric UFT leadership is using, there’s only one reason to change the code: so that the City can put retirees onto a lower quality Medicare Advantage plan just to save a few bucks. Doing this would also open a Pandora’s Box that could lead to other future cutbacks for in-service healthcare. We have to draw a line in the sand here and say no. Our retirees and future retirees deserve the high quality healthcare they earned. We can find other sources of healthcare funding and cost-savings. Amending 12-126 would literally put our lives on the line. 

Please do the right thing here. Please vote NO on amending the code. 

Sincerely,

Nick Bacon,

Member of UFT Executive Board (High Schools) and Co-Chair of the UFT New Action Caucus

There are two stories on the December, 2022 DA. One is the protest outside the DA, where hundreds of retirees and supporters gathered in front of 52 Broadway to protest healthcare givebacks. The other story is what happened in the DA.

Mulgrew spoke a lot tonight on the ‘arbitration decision’ that supposedly compels the MLC/City to force retirees onto Medicare Advantage. He also thanked our members for doing as told and petitioning the City Council to amend 12-126. I asked a two part question, which I show below with his response summarized in italics.

(1) Martin Scheinman phrases his so-called ‘award’ not as a ‘decision’ but as a ‘recommendation.’ He calls other awards ‘decisions.’ Councilwoman Gale Brewer also commented that the arbitrator decision is non-binding. Why are you calling it a decision? To this question, Michael Mulgrew admitted that the decision is not binding, despite having spoken about it as if it was before my question. Of course, if it’s non-binding, that begs the question of why we’re even talking about it. It literally can’t be enforced.

(2) There’s been a lot of talk tonight about our fight to change 12-126. You called it ‘our opinion’ that it should be changed. But there was never a decision by the Executive Board or the Delegate Assembly that this was our point of view. Shouldn’t we have been consulted for a vote before we as a union decided it was our decision to invest in resources and campaign to literally change city law? Other unions, don’t even agree with that move. PSC (the CUNY professors union) for instance is campaigning to NOT change the code. Mulgrew’s response was long here. He gaslit a bit about how we ‘can’t vote on EVERYTHING.’ But more importantly he noted that ‘he was voted in’ and thus ‘has the right to make decisions.’ What does that say about our democracy?

Towards the end of the DA, I put forward an amendment to the Tier 6 reso, a reso which was vague as originally written, as it did not specify that the union planned to do anything to make Tier 6 anything like Tier 4. Dave Kazansky spoke against the amendment, which should tell us how cosmetic are the changes they plan to make to Tier 6. Before anyone in opposition, including me, had a chance to endorse, the parliamentarian claimed that the amendment, which has 3 resolves, isn’t 3 lines, and therefore needs to be printed. They therefore, on a dubious technicality, prevented a vote from taking place on the amendment below:

Be it resolved: the UFT will begin an immediate and aggressive lobbying campaign to the City and the State to improve Tier 6 to at least the level enjoyed by current members of Tier 4. Where benefits differ within Tier 4 for members with different join dates, the UFT will opt to work to equalize both Tier 4 and Tier 6 to the join date with superior benefits.

Be it resolved: as part of this campaign, the UFT will lobby to create a 25-55 option for all current Tier 6 members equal to that previously offered to many Tier 4 members.

Be it resolved: the UFT will also commit to campaigning against any new proposed tiers for future members that have lower benefits than those of currently active tiers.

What can I say? Not a great night for UFT democracy.