DC 37 Contract Deal Gives 3% Annual Raises, But No Details on Retirees’ Health Care

By Steve Wishnia 

The city has reached a tentative contract deal with District Council 37, the union representing more than a quarter of the municipal workforce, Mayor Eric Adams announced Feb. 17.

If ratified by the union’s members, the proposed deal would give workers raises averaging 3% a year over its roughly 5½-year duration, retroactive to May 2021. The last raise, 3.25%, would come in May 2025, and the contract would end in November 2026. It would also set an $18-an-hour minimum wage for workers it covers, effective on July 1, and includes a $3,000 bonus for ratifying it.

The tentative deal is the first major labor contract agreement reached by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration since it took office in January 2022. Adams, describing himself as a “blue-collar mayor,” called it “a great deal for workers and fair to city taxpayers.”

“Through this contract, we’ve secured long-overdue raises for city workers, protected their premium-free health benefits, and lifted the lowest wages to an $18 minimum,” DC 37 Executive Director Henry A. Garridosaid in a statement released by the mayor’s office. “We made changes that will help the city be competitive in its retention and recruitment of workers, including the creation of a child care trust fund and flexible work schedules with telecommuting options.”

The mayor’s statement, however, did not explain how the contract protected premium-free health benefits — or how it would affect retired city workers’ health care, which the administration has been pushing to switch from traditional Medicare to private Medicare Advantage plans. It “leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered,” Office of Staff Analysts chairperson Robert Croghan told Work-Bites.

“We don’t have any details about it,” said Marianne Pizzitola, president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, the group that successfully sued to block the switch to Medicare Advantage last year.

However, she added, “we are happy to see that DC 37 got a tentative contract.” The administration had been saying that it would not negotiate any contract deals with municipal unions until the issue of retirees’ health care was settled.

The Adams administration is working on a deal with the Aetna insurance company to develop a new Medicare Advantage plan for retirees. DC 37 and the other largeunions on the Municipal Labor Committee, the United Federation of Teachers and the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, have all backed putting retirees into Medicare Advantage, as well as the administration’s attempt to modify the section of the city administrative code a state court used to block the switch. That change failed to win enough support in the City Council to get a vote last month.

Neither the mayor’s press office not DC 37 responded to messages from Work-Bites.

The proposed contract would also set up a committee where the city and DC 37 would develop ways to give workers more flexible schedules, such as remote work, compressed schedules, and improved transit benefits. It would also have the city give $3 million a year to a new DC 37 trust fund for child care, and set aside $70 million, administered by the city and the union, to raise pay in order to recruit workers for hard-to-fill positions.