Congratulations, Retiree Advocate!

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Dear New Action Retiree and In-Service Supporter,

You’ve probably heard by now that yesterday WE WON AN HISTORIC VICTORY! Retiree Advocate  scored a landmark upset by defeating Unity Caucus by a vote of  17,226 to 10,114 or 63% to 37%. We want to first and foremost congratulate our newly elected Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer and the entire Retiree Advocate team. We are especially proud that we will have 300 delegates representing us at monthly Delegate Assemblies. This will fundamentally change things for the better for the membership.

New Action/UFT  is also proud that several members of our caucus were elected as vice chairs, including Greg DiStefano and Michael Shulman, along with Bobby Greenberg as RTC Treasurer. We are excited about serving with our other colleagues as Officers, Vice Chair Leaders and RA Executive Board candidates. Greg alone recruited 98 of our members to run (and win) as delegates.

Three years ago when we (RA) ran and garnered 30% of the vote we heard only rumors about the move to Medicare Advantage. It barely made mention in our literature during that election because we simply did not have enough information.

That secret deal (sell-out) in 2014 and 2018 to give the City 600 million dollars in savings each year going forward in exchange for wage increases.  It was the beginning of the end for Michael Mulgrew and Unity Caucus. Of course, you realize that not one member of the PRIVATIZATION Caucus (Unity) raised their voice to oppose this deal. In fact, every loyalist and person on paid staff adamantly opposed the growing number that pointed out why Medicare Advantage would be a disaster for retirees. We also warned about the potential disaster for our in-service members.

Today starts a new day! We have a general UFT election coming up next year and urge the broadest coalition of those opposed to Unity to make immediate plans to take our union back.

We particularly encourage and welcome all honest, current Unity members to consider joining our coalition.

Again congratulations to Bennett and everyone who made this victory possible.