I would like to see a lot more from ZM about his mayoral approach to bargaining with the municipal unions, especially since that's an area where he's way better positioned to partially achieve some of his proposals like a $30 minimum wage. Even if Albany is required to make that the law of the 5 boroughs, explicitly supporting it _as a minimum for city workers_ as we begin the next round of bargaining, when many DC37 jobs in particular do not pay that much, would be significant - can mayors make direct asks to labor relations city management-side reps about what to agree to?
Found your sub stack interesting. Let me share with you our personal experience. We are New York City retirees, there are 250,000 of us who have been fighting the city of New York from trying to force us off our public health benefit of Medicare and statutorily paid supplement and into a Medicare advantage plan. No, this wasn’t just Mayor Di Blasio who did this, this scheme was initiated by the largest unions in the city of New York that had no issue with privatizing a federal public health benefit that labor helped pass in 1965, becoming one of the greatest civil rights achievements ever in health.
Why did they have no issue doing it? Because they were told by management that if they gave them back the Retirees supplemental plan paid for by the city of New York since 1967 under a city statute known as 12–126, they would give the less than $600 million a year that The City was paying for Retiree healthcare to the union and give them a raise. And they did.
New York City, Retirees are majority unionists, and a small portion of managerial retirees who were never in a union. However, the retired unionists knew what the unions were doing was illegal and immoral. Not just because of the promise made to us, not just because they were walking back protecting a retiree who is no longer in the union because they’re retired, but because they were privatizing a federal public health benefit and diminishing our healthcare at a time when we needed it most and forcing us into a predatory for-profit health scam. We earned Medicare, we paid for it, and it was our vested benefit and one of the reasons why we joined a union 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Our oldest Retiree is 104 years old, and today feels betrayed by her union, the Uft, for trying to claw back her healthcare, my oldest DC 37 Retiree is 103 years old and she too feels betrayed by Henry Garrido. Unions do not represent current retirees, but they had a moral and fiduciary responsibility to protect us and what we earned.
If you speak of what a mayoral candidate can do to strengthen unionism in the city of New York, I find no comfort in your belief that that could be Zohran Mamdani.
Here’s why.
His platform should tell me that he supports a federal public health benefit and not privatizing healthcare. However, he’s refused to speak with us. I am the president of the New York City organization of public service Retirees who represents these 250,000 retired unionists. The statement on his website speak to EMPLOYEES, NOT RETIREES.
He met with me once, came late to the meeting, was unprepared, promised he’d get back to us and never did. He did not attend our mayoral debate in April. And his staff does not reply to our communications.
We currently have a bill that would protect all municipal retirees in the state of New York in the state legislature. He is not on that bill.
We have another bill in the City Council to protect city Retirees he won’t support that bill either. And he won’t communicate with us.
We laid out a pledge to every candidate for office, and said if you can commit to these three things and keep a line of open communication as a candidate and when you’re elected, we would support you. The only two who have not done that are Zohran Mamdani and Eric Adams.
The pledge says these three things:
We asked candidates seeking our endorsement if they agreed to support fixing the three biggest issues a retiree has today:
1. Not being forced into Medicare Advantage - preserving our promised paid-for supplement to Traditional Medicare & not permitting backdoor premium onto us in the form of copays and deductibles.
2. Medicare B reimbursement isn't refunded as required by law till 16-22 months later. This needs to be monthly or quarterly in the year it's paid.
3. Our family healthcare dies the day we do. There needs to be a 30, 60 or 90 days grace for loved ones to get their affairs in order and the City to advise them their alternatives.
And agree to continue open communication with retirees.
If the candidate met with us, attended our debate, agreed to these issues in writing, on their campaign letterhead with a signature, we would endorse them so retirees know WHO is on their side. We endorse candidates who supports these issues as "Retiree Approved."
The next thing to watch for is, AFTER they agree, are they quiet about their support or do they proudly say they support it?
******
That’s not too much for anyone to pledge to protect right? However, the people who implemented that scheme to force current retirees into a Medicare advantage plan, is the United Federation of Teachers, District Council 37, Mayor Bill DiBlasio, and Dean Fuleihan who served in the Office of Management and Budget and the first Deputy Mayor to DiBlasio. What do they all have in common? They are all on. Zohran’s organization's inner circle.
So while young union workers aren’t paying attention that yesterday, these very same people tried to privatize a federal public health benefit and reduce their healthcare access when they are older, the older retirees were forced to file litigation and continue to do so for the past 4 1/2 years using the power of collective actions because we were taught by the BEST unionists how to fight. They say you can't fight City Hall - but we did - and won 11 times so far.
This candidate still refuses to strengthen that protection for retired workers, focusing only on workers, and if he’s willing to sell off your future self, he’s not willing to protect you.
No one should allow an elderly or disabled person to fight for their healthcare that they earned and paid for in their retirement - it's shameful. We are the aged, disabled, 9/11 responders and survivors, line of duty widows and widowers and our disabled children.
And while everyone still sits on the sidelines, the only support we currently have is ourselves.
Medicare, was passed in 1965 and was one of the greatest civil rights achievements ever that only was passed because of the support of labor unions. Including the Afl Cio.
You want to talk about strengthening the labor movement? The Afl Cio is currently lobbying against legislation that the Retirees have in both the state and the city to protect their Medicare benefit benefits. The Afl Cio also sells three Medicare advantage plans. For some of their members it’s meant as an option the way it should be. But under no circumstances, should someone be forced into a health plan that their doctors in hospitals refuse to accept, be forced off a federal public health benefit that we earned and paid for, And never, ever, should our former unions be lobbying against Retired unionists, and blocking their legislation to protect the benefit they earned.
You want to strengthen the labor movement? Then stop that. Because you won’t have to worry about the Republicans destroying unions, because you’re doing it yourself from the inside. Right now you have a quarter of 1 million Retirees in their families angry for the last 4 1/2 years at their former unions for what they’ve put us through and this is in the city of New York.
They aren’t learning from our 11 court wins. Because once again they are unveiling a new health plan to replace the current plan for active workers and non-Medicare retirees and not sharing that information with current retirees. Once again, a back door deal made where the terms are Secret.
New York City needs good strong unions, we need to fight back to protect the benefits that we earn and increase the wages for all workers. Getting in bed with management or as Henry Garrido would say, partnering with management, doesn’t make for a strong union contract. It’s a betrayal to the people who have trusted these union leaders. And we have proved it’s a betrayal to retired unionists.
The umbrella organization of the municipal labor committee has become a bully pulpit for the largest unions to take advantage of the smaller unions, pitting them against each other. That’s anti-union. They have gone so far as to collect dues from 102 unions, and then when one of those unions takes a position that the leadership doesn’t agree with, if that union files a lawsuit against The City, the umbrella union group takes a position siding with management against the union. The municipal labor committee did that with the NYPD, and the New York City Retirees.
I don’t think all those unions members appreciated that. I know we didn’t.
What’s lacking in this city is a labor education. If more Labor leaders knew their union history maybe the last 4 1/2 years would never have happened and we wouldn’t still be in court. 2/3 of DC37 Retirees make under $35,000 pensions like myself, 1/3 of them make under $12,000 pensions and yet those same union leaders I described above as we were winning our court cases then decided to implement $15 co-pays on Retirees for the first time in 60 years to finance their raises we do not benefit from. Using the excuse that Retiree healthcare is skyrocketing when our healthcare plan is the least expensive to the city of New York and only cost $200 a person a month versus the $1000 a month or $2800 a month individual or family plan for an active worker. Now, when a $15,000 pensioner goes to the doctor that Retiree who used to have no insurance costs once they met the Medicare deductible and the Ghi deductible, will now pay up to $60 per visit. If they go to chemotherapy or physical therapy three times a week you do the math.
These ill-advised union leaders just imposed a major financial penalty on the lowest pensioners in the city who were promised their healthcare would be at no cost, simply to finance their benefits and their raises. You wanna make union strong again? Then make them honest, transparent, and honor the promises that are kept to their Retirees.
This is a whole lot for you to absorb, but it is the darn truth and if you need anything to prove it, just write me. I’ll be glad to give you anything you want because most of it’s in our court case anyway and public information.
But when you have union leaders walking into municipal labor committee meeting negotiating how much cost to transfer to workers and retirees to fund contracts those leaders aren’t doing their jobs.
Let us help you fix that. But I can’t get behind your theory that a political candidate who refuses to discuss these issues with the group that it’s impacting is going to be our savior. That candidate should be willing to speak with people that agree and disagree with him, and everyone in between if he wishes to run the largest union city in the country.
If only unions just “focused primarily on narrowly fighting for what union officials believe to be in the best interests of their members.”
Typically it’s what union officials believe to be in the official’s best interest.
This isn’t to discount the point of the article, but it does understate the resistance that a rank and file movement will face, not only from corporate power, but from unions themselves
The Mayoral Office for Workers Rights is a very important strategic node here. I wonder to what extent the city might be able to support basic workers rights education for it to role out on a mass basis. Having 60,000 campaign volunteers become 60,000 union educators could be quite a powerful move.
I would like to see a lot more from ZM about his mayoral approach to bargaining with the municipal unions, especially since that's an area where he's way better positioned to partially achieve some of his proposals like a $30 minimum wage. Even if Albany is required to make that the law of the 5 boroughs, explicitly supporting it _as a minimum for city workers_ as we begin the next round of bargaining, when many DC37 jobs in particular do not pay that much, would be significant - can mayors make direct asks to labor relations city management-side reps about what to agree to?
Found your sub stack interesting. Let me share with you our personal experience. We are New York City retirees, there are 250,000 of us who have been fighting the city of New York from trying to force us off our public health benefit of Medicare and statutorily paid supplement and into a Medicare advantage plan. No, this wasn’t just Mayor Di Blasio who did this, this scheme was initiated by the largest unions in the city of New York that had no issue with privatizing a federal public health benefit that labor helped pass in 1965, becoming one of the greatest civil rights achievements ever in health.
Why did they have no issue doing it? Because they were told by management that if they gave them back the Retirees supplemental plan paid for by the city of New York since 1967 under a city statute known as 12–126, they would give the less than $600 million a year that The City was paying for Retiree healthcare to the union and give them a raise. And they did.
New York City, Retirees are majority unionists, and a small portion of managerial retirees who were never in a union. However, the retired unionists knew what the unions were doing was illegal and immoral. Not just because of the promise made to us, not just because they were walking back protecting a retiree who is no longer in the union because they’re retired, but because they were privatizing a federal public health benefit and diminishing our healthcare at a time when we needed it most and forcing us into a predatory for-profit health scam. We earned Medicare, we paid for it, and it was our vested benefit and one of the reasons why we joined a union 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Our oldest Retiree is 104 years old, and today feels betrayed by her union, the Uft, for trying to claw back her healthcare, my oldest DC 37 Retiree is 103 years old and she too feels betrayed by Henry Garrido. Unions do not represent current retirees, but they had a moral and fiduciary responsibility to protect us and what we earned.
If you speak of what a mayoral candidate can do to strengthen unionism in the city of New York, I find no comfort in your belief that that could be Zohran Mamdani.
Here’s why.
His platform should tell me that he supports a federal public health benefit and not privatizing healthcare. However, he’s refused to speak with us. I am the president of the New York City organization of public service Retirees who represents these 250,000 retired unionists. The statement on his website speak to EMPLOYEES, NOT RETIREES.
He met with me once, came late to the meeting, was unprepared, promised he’d get back to us and never did. He did not attend our mayoral debate in April. And his staff does not reply to our communications.
We currently have a bill that would protect all municipal retirees in the state of New York in the state legislature. He is not on that bill.
We have another bill in the City Council to protect city Retirees he won’t support that bill either. And he won’t communicate with us.
We laid out a pledge to every candidate for office, and said if you can commit to these three things and keep a line of open communication as a candidate and when you’re elected, we would support you. The only two who have not done that are Zohran Mamdani and Eric Adams.
The pledge says these three things:
We asked candidates seeking our endorsement if they agreed to support fixing the three biggest issues a retiree has today:
1. Not being forced into Medicare Advantage - preserving our promised paid-for supplement to Traditional Medicare & not permitting backdoor premium onto us in the form of copays and deductibles.
2. Medicare B reimbursement isn't refunded as required by law till 16-22 months later. This needs to be monthly or quarterly in the year it's paid.
3. Our family healthcare dies the day we do. There needs to be a 30, 60 or 90 days grace for loved ones to get their affairs in order and the City to advise them their alternatives.
And agree to continue open communication with retirees.
If the candidate met with us, attended our debate, agreed to these issues in writing, on their campaign letterhead with a signature, we would endorse them so retirees know WHO is on their side. We endorse candidates who supports these issues as "Retiree Approved."
The next thing to watch for is, AFTER they agree, are they quiet about their support or do they proudly say they support it?
******
That’s not too much for anyone to pledge to protect right? However, the people who implemented that scheme to force current retirees into a Medicare advantage plan, is the United Federation of Teachers, District Council 37, Mayor Bill DiBlasio, and Dean Fuleihan who served in the Office of Management and Budget and the first Deputy Mayor to DiBlasio. What do they all have in common? They are all on. Zohran’s organization's inner circle.
part 1
part 2
So while young union workers aren’t paying attention that yesterday, these very same people tried to privatize a federal public health benefit and reduce their healthcare access when they are older, the older retirees were forced to file litigation and continue to do so for the past 4 1/2 years using the power of collective actions because we were taught by the BEST unionists how to fight. They say you can't fight City Hall - but we did - and won 11 times so far.
This candidate still refuses to strengthen that protection for retired workers, focusing only on workers, and if he’s willing to sell off your future self, he’s not willing to protect you.
No one should allow an elderly or disabled person to fight for their healthcare that they earned and paid for in their retirement - it's shameful. We are the aged, disabled, 9/11 responders and survivors, line of duty widows and widowers and our disabled children.
And while everyone still sits on the sidelines, the only support we currently have is ourselves.
Medicare, was passed in 1965 and was one of the greatest civil rights achievements ever that only was passed because of the support of labor unions. Including the Afl Cio.
You want to talk about strengthening the labor movement? The Afl Cio is currently lobbying against legislation that the Retirees have in both the state and the city to protect their Medicare benefit benefits. The Afl Cio also sells three Medicare advantage plans. For some of their members it’s meant as an option the way it should be. But under no circumstances, should someone be forced into a health plan that their doctors in hospitals refuse to accept, be forced off a federal public health benefit that we earned and paid for, And never, ever, should our former unions be lobbying against Retired unionists, and blocking their legislation to protect the benefit they earned.
You want to strengthen the labor movement? Then stop that. Because you won’t have to worry about the Republicans destroying unions, because you’re doing it yourself from the inside. Right now you have a quarter of 1 million Retirees in their families angry for the last 4 1/2 years at their former unions for what they’ve put us through and this is in the city of New York.
They aren’t learning from our 11 court wins. Because once again they are unveiling a new health plan to replace the current plan for active workers and non-Medicare retirees and not sharing that information with current retirees. Once again, a back door deal made where the terms are Secret.
New York City needs good strong unions, we need to fight back to protect the benefits that we earn and increase the wages for all workers. Getting in bed with management or as Henry Garrido would say, partnering with management, doesn’t make for a strong union contract. It’s a betrayal to the people who have trusted these union leaders. And we have proved it’s a betrayal to retired unionists.
The umbrella organization of the municipal labor committee has become a bully pulpit for the largest unions to take advantage of the smaller unions, pitting them against each other. That’s anti-union. They have gone so far as to collect dues from 102 unions, and then when one of those unions takes a position that the leadership doesn’t agree with, if that union files a lawsuit against The City, the umbrella union group takes a position siding with management against the union. The municipal labor committee did that with the NYPD, and the New York City Retirees.
I don’t think all those unions members appreciated that. I know we didn’t.
What’s lacking in this city is a labor education. If more Labor leaders knew their union history maybe the last 4 1/2 years would never have happened and we wouldn’t still be in court. 2/3 of DC37 Retirees make under $35,000 pensions like myself, 1/3 of them make under $12,000 pensions and yet those same union leaders I described above as we were winning our court cases then decided to implement $15 co-pays on Retirees for the first time in 60 years to finance their raises we do not benefit from. Using the excuse that Retiree healthcare is skyrocketing when our healthcare plan is the least expensive to the city of New York and only cost $200 a person a month versus the $1000 a month or $2800 a month individual or family plan for an active worker. Now, when a $15,000 pensioner goes to the doctor that Retiree who used to have no insurance costs once they met the Medicare deductible and the Ghi deductible, will now pay up to $60 per visit. If they go to chemotherapy or physical therapy three times a week you do the math.
These ill-advised union leaders just imposed a major financial penalty on the lowest pensioners in the city who were promised their healthcare would be at no cost, simply to finance their benefits and their raises. You wanna make union strong again? Then make them honest, transparent, and honor the promises that are kept to their Retirees.
This is a whole lot for you to absorb, but it is the darn truth and if you need anything to prove it, just write me. I’ll be glad to give you anything you want because most of it’s in our court case anyway and public information.
But when you have union leaders walking into municipal labor committee meeting negotiating how much cost to transfer to workers and retirees to fund contracts those leaders aren’t doing their jobs.
Let us help you fix that. But I can’t get behind your theory that a political candidate who refuses to discuss these issues with the group that it’s impacting is going to be our savior. That candidate should be willing to speak with people that agree and disagree with him, and everyone in between if he wishes to run the largest union city in the country.
If only unions just “focused primarily on narrowly fighting for what union officials believe to be in the best interests of their members.”
Typically it’s what union officials believe to be in the official’s best interest.
This isn’t to discount the point of the article, but it does understate the resistance that a rank and file movement will face, not only from corporate power, but from unions themselves
The Mayoral Office for Workers Rights is a very important strategic node here. I wonder to what extent the city might be able to support basic workers rights education for it to role out on a mass basis. Having 60,000 campaign volunteers become 60,000 union educators could be quite a powerful move.