NYC Retirees Occupy Union HQ to Protest Medicare Advantage Push—AFL-CIO Says it Opposes Any Effort to Reduce Choice

New York City municipal retirees fighting back against the Medicare Advantage push flood District Council 37’s lobby at 125 Barclay Street. Photos/Joe Maniscalco

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Municipal retirees fighting back against the campaign to strip them of their Traditional Medicare coverage and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan were once again denied a seat at the table this week—so, just like the late Shirley Chisholm urged—they brought folding chairs.

The Roughly 75 to 100 retirees who marched on the headquarters of New York City’s largest public sector union on Monday afternoon broke out plastic folding chairs and occupied District Council 37’s lobby at 125 Barclay Street for hours after being denied entry to a meeting between ten or more City Council members and Executive Director Henry Garrido.

Garrido called the exclusive meeting in a further effort to push privatization on municipal retirees and to again warn New York City Council members to steer clear of Intro. 1096—pending legislation sponsored by Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District] aimed at protecting the Traditional Medicare benefits retirees earned on the job.

New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees President Marianne Pizzitola [checkered coat] leads fellow retirees on this week’s march to District Council 37 headquarters.

“These guys are basically following Trump’s [Project] 2025 plan to convert all of Medicare into private operations—so-called Medicare Advantage,” 81-year-old IT retiree and leukemia sufferer Phil Richman told Work-Bites. “Nobody wants it. I looked around for doctors and kept changing until I found a really good one. But I could only do that because I had Senior Care. My brother had the same disease and was on his wife’s Medicare Advantage—and he died before the medication came.”

Marianne Pizzitola, retired first-responder and head of New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees, blasted Garrido for attempting to undermine Intro. 1096 and “perpetuating the big lies” about it.

“Intro. 1096 does not interfere with collective bargaining,” Pizzitola said. “That’s because retirees are not in unions. We don’t collectively bargain. The deals that we made when we were employed—those are the deals that they have to maintain. We say, ‘promises made, promises kept’ for a reason. We earned our benefits. They’re not for Henry to sell off.”

New York City municipal retiree Al Carrente holds up a sign jeering District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, MLC Chair Harry Nespoli, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, and Mayor Eric Adams.

New York City municipal retiree Al Corrente told Work-Bites he spent nearly 30 years working in the Dept. of Corrections. It was never his “dream job” and family and friends actually mocked him for the relatively low salary he was taking home. But Corrente said he didn’t care because he was proud to serve the city, met a lot of good people, and was more concerned about the benefits and paid healthcare that came with the post. He carried a sign denouncing Garrido, along with Municipal Labor Committee Chair Harry Nespoli, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, and Mayor Eric Adams for attacking retirees.

“All four of these major labor leaders and politicians have just teamed up on retirees,” he said. “It’s sad that it’s come to this.”

Mulgrew reversed course and renounced support for the Medicare Advantage push last June, after retirees steadfastly opposing privatization seized control of the UFT Retired Teachers Chapter in a landslide election. 

But Garrido has continued the drive for privatization, claiming—as other Medicare Advantage  proponents routinely do, that the plan he supports is different from other Medicare Advantage plans shown again and again to subject recipients to devastating delays and denials of care, as well as ever-diminishing pools of participating doctors and hospitals.

New York City municipal retiree Phil Richman holds up sign invoking Shirley Chisholm’s enduring legacy.

“They were trying to make the argument that their Medicare Advantage plan was going to be a good one,” Max Deutsch, legislative director for Council Member Marte told Work-Bites after leaving Garrido’s meeting. “We believe Medicare Advantage is objectively bad. We should not be privatizing Medicare.”

The AFL-CIO recently issued a statement to Work-Bites that directly contradicts what Garrido is still attempting to do in New York City.

"We strongly oppose any effort to reduce beneficiary choice, including the choice of enrolling in traditional Medicare,” AFL-CIO Policy Director Candace Archer told Work-Bites in an email. "We also strongly support the expansion of original Medicare so that beneficiaries choosing that option have the same range of benefits as beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage.”

“We will not be silent.” Former District Council 37 Retirees Association officer Neal Frumkin calls out Henry Garrido’s “lies.”

District Council 37, of course, is a member of AFSCME and the AFL-CIO. But in February, AFSCME “swooped in” and took control of the District Council 37 Retirees Association and suspended its officers after the organization refused to quit supporting the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees and its efforts to fight back against the Medicare Advantage push.

“We will not be silenced,” Neal Frumkin, former District Council 37 Retirees Association vice-president of interunion relations, said on Monday. “We will fight back. One of the big lies Henry Garrido says is retirees are afraid of change. Well, we’re not afraid of change. We like change when it’s to our benefit. But when you try to put us into a Medicare Dis-Advantage system which denies adequate care to millions of people around this country—we don’t want that kind of care. We don’t want that kind of change. We want to maintain our Traditional Medicare and our supplemental benefit.”

Frumkin also skewered Garrido’s contention that the city’s Health Stabilization Fund is broke and necessitates retirees be pushed into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido slips past retirees occupying the union’s lobby at 125 Barclay Street.

“Henry has another lie,” Frumkin continued. “He says our refusal to go into this managed care denial system is the reason the Health Stabilization Fund is broke. Well, that’s another big lie. The reason is that Garrido and others in the Municipal Labor Committee raided that Stabilization Fund to use that money for purposes that was not intended. They wasted that money and now that Stabilization Fund is depleted.”

There’s an answer to to that, Frumkin added.

“Make the city put money into the Stabilization Fund,” he said. “That’s what a union does—you fight. Henry got AFSCME to attack the Retiree Association. Henry should be fighting against the City of New York. That’s what we expect of a labor leader. But guess what? Henry does not deserve that title. He is not a labor leader.”

Breast cancer survivor Merritt Claude spent more than 30 years working for the Administration for Children Services, and was a longtime District Council 37 delegate.

For her, the ongoing privatization and Medicare Advantage push in New York City is threatening to “sabotage” the entire American labor movement.

“And it basically shows corruption,” the nearly 78-year-old told Work-Bites. “Because they need the money from the [Health Stabilization Fund], which they aren't supposed to do, and they're taking that money and using it to pay current workers’ raises. That's immoral. Not only immoral, but illegal. And on top of that, they’re not allowed to say that they're bargaining for us. They can't bargain on behalf of the retirees. We're not actual workers.”

Mayoral candidate Jim Walden and City Council candidate Edafe Okporo, as well as sitting City Council Member Kristy Marmorato [R-District 13] all rallied alongside retirees and expressed full-throated support for their fight against privatization.

Council Member Marte, meanwhile, says Monday’s meeting at District Council 37 was a “good opportunity to hear the union’s “perspective on retiree healthcare, and to engage in a real conversation about with my Council colleagues.”

“Now that I have a full understanding of DC37's position, I look forward to hosting my own briefing for Council Members, with retirees present, so my colleagues can learn why DC37's arguments regarding the stabilization fund are incomplete, and why forcing retirees onto an objectively harmful Medicare Advantage plan is not the solution to fix the stabilization fund,” he told Work-Bites in an email on Tuesday.

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