By Joe Maniscalco

The heads of New York City’s most powerful public sector unions are once again calling on Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District] to spike efforts to safeguard the existing Medicare health insurance benefits thousands of municipal retirees and their families depend.

New York City Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District] introduced new legislation on Oct. 23, which if enacted, would prevent Mayor Eric Adams’ administration from stripping municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and force them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna.

The mayor signed a five-year contract with Aetna last year, but retirees have successfully blocked the city from implementing the plan in a series of court victories affirming their position that the privatization scheme constitutes a diminishment of existing Medicare benefits.

Intro. 1096 seeks to amend New York City’s Administrative Code to “preserve health care choice for retirees from city service” and compel the city to offer Medicare-eligible retirees and their Medicare-eligible dependents “at least one Medigap plan with benefits equivalent to or better than those available to City retirees and their dependents as of December 31, 2021.”

But on Oct. 30, Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] Chair Harry Nespoli signed a letter to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams jeering Marte’s bill as an “attack on fundamental tenets of collective bargaining under the Taylor Law and the New York City Collective Bargaining Law” and warning it “should not be permitted to proceed.”

The heads of the MLC previously lobbied—or coerced—Speaker Adams and the City Council to successfully kill similar legislation to protect retirees when it was introduced by former City Council Member Charles Barron last year.

"Our retirees dedicated their careers to this city, often turning down better-paying jobs out of love for New York and a commitment to public service,” City Council Member [D-30th District] and Intro. 1096 co-sponsor Robert Holden told Work-Bites. “Unfortunately, the MLC is waging war against retirees, pitting active members against them, while City Hall, under Mayor Adams, relentlessly fights to strip retirees of the healthcare they were promised—despite retirees winning repeatedly in court. It's unacceptable, and I fully support urgent action to protect our retirees and put an end to this assault on their well-earned benefits.”

MLC support for Mayor Adams’ Medicare Advantage push appeared to fracture in June when United Federation of Teachers [UFT] President Michael Mulgrew abruptly did an about-face and withdrew his union’s backing after UFT retirees opposed to the privatization scheme seized control of the Retired Teachers Chapter in a crushingly-decisive election.

Mulgrew’s signature doesn’t appear on the Oct. 30 MLC letter to Speaker Adams, but a spokesperson for the union told Work-Bites that the UFT agrees with and supports the letter.

“In particular,” the UFT spokesperson said in an email, “we agree with these two points of the letter, that it is illegal on its face and giving up bargaining authority does not benefit city employees: "....the substance of the bill is preempted by state law and is illegal. While this bill was introduced under the guise of protecting retiree health benefits, it actually threatens them. History has shown that when benefits are removed from collective bargaining in favor of legislative control, they are subject to unilateral reduction.”

Municipal retirees who’ve spent the last three years battling the ongoing campaign to force them—and all “retirees in training”—into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan are calling B.S. on the MLC and its latest attempt to once again sink legislative efforts to safeguard the Medicare benefits retirees were promised when they signed up for city service.

“The benefits were indeed subject to collective bargaining,” retired teacher and Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee member Roberta Pikser told Work-Bites. “It is the MLC that is attempting to remove them from previous contractual agreements, and it is the MLC which is unilaterally reducing them.  Well, not unilaterally—bilaterally, or [in] complicity with the Mayor's office.”

A City Council spokesperson confirmed receipt of the MLC’s Oct. 30 letter calling on Speaker Adams to kill Intro. 1096.

“Int. 1096 was just introduced at the Council’s October 23rd Stated Meeting,” the spokesperson told Work-Bites in an email. “Just like all bills, it will go through the legislative process and the Council will continue to receive input from all of our city’s stakeholders. We continue to monitor the ongoing legal proceedings in the courts related to these issues, and the Speaker has maintained that the City needs closure that sufficiently addresses the concerns of all sides.”

So far, only six members of the New York City Council have signed on in support of Intro. 1096.

The MLC’s Oct. 30 letter to Speaker Adrienne Adams appears below:

Thanks for reading! If you value this reporting and would like to help keep Work-Bites on the job AND GROWING, please consider donating whatever you can today. Work-Bites is a completely independent 501c3 nonprofit news organization dedicated to our readers — and we need your support! Invite friends, family, and co-workers to subscribe to the Work-Bites Wake Up Call!!