NYC Labor Day Parade Showdown: Retirees Challenge Union Leaders On Medicare Advantage Push

NYCOPSR President Marianne Pizzitola engages with NYS AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento [l] and NYC Central Labor Council President Vinny Alvarez [r] following Saturday’s Labor Day Parade. Photos and video by Joe Maniscalco

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By Joe Maniscalco

This weekend’s New York City Labor Day Parade saw municipal retirees fighting to retain their Medicare coverage tangle with the heads of both the state AFL-CIO and NYC Central Labor Council over the duo’s opposition to Intro. 1099 — the City Council bill aimed at shielding traditional health insurance from Medicare Advantage and privatization.   

The exchange happened at 5th Avenue and 64th Street after the retired civil servants marching behind the DC37 Retirees Association banner finished the parade route and spotted New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento and NYC Central Labor Council President Vinny Alvarez near the reviewing stand.

“Shame,” New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPCR] Treasurer Carol Whitton told Cilento, while an increasingly antsy Alvarez looked on. The UFT retiree reminded the head of the New York State AFL-CIO that it was civil servants like her who helped the City of New York survive the financial crisis of 1975.

“My pension was put at risk in 1975 to save this city from bankruptcy and this is how you thank me?” Whitton told Cilento. Fellow municipal retirees wearing DC 37 green held up signs supporting passage of Intro. 1099 and chanted, “New York City, Don’t You Dare Touch My Medicare.”

New York City municipal retirees, along with their counterparts in other cities around the country, have long maintained union leaders pushing profit-driven Medicare Advantage programs are helping to destroy traditional Medicare and jeopardizing the future of the entire American labor movement.

"There was a very large contingent of both DC37 Retirees and NYCOPSR members marching with DC 37 in the parade,” Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations President Stu Eber later said. “We were chanting to save our Medicare and to enact Intro 1099."

Last month, the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC], the umbrella organization representing the city’s public sector unions, sent out a letter to City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District] trashing Intro. 1099 as “an attack on fundamental tenets of collective bargaining” and urging its demise. The names of both Cilento and Alvarez headed a list of labor leaders in apparent support.

New York City municipal retirees vehemently deny Intro. 1099 impacts collective bargaining in any way — and they keep winning in court.

NYC municipal retirees fighting the privatization of their traditional Medicare coverage march in this year’s NYC Labor Day Parade.

So far, however, less than 20 City Council members have signed on in support of Intro. 1099. 

Retired EMT and NYCOPSR President Marianne Pizzitola briefly engaged the labor leaders ahead of Whitton. Parade Grand Marshal Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, and Parade Chair Mark Henry, vice-chair of the Amalgamated Transit Union, stood nearby.

“I went up to Mario Cilento and Vinny Alverez,” Pizzitola later told Work-Bites. “I told Vinny I wanted to speak with you, but you didn’t want to speak to me. So, we came to you as retired labor to be seen and heard — because no union — and no president of a labor organization — should advocate for diminishing benefits or privatizing Medicare against a retired union worker.”

Pizzitola then implored Cilento for a meeting to discuss the issue and urged Hagans to support municipal retirees in their defense of traditional Medicare health insurance coverage.

“I said you’re a union leader — you should be standing by our side,” Pizzitola told Work-Bites. “You should be explaining to Mario and Vinny that no union should be advocating for diminishing a retired union worker’s benefits — and should not be privatizing Medicare. She said, ‘That’s why I stand for the New York Health Act.’”

Work-Bites has reached out to Cilento, Alvarez and Hagans — and is awaiting comment.

Last week, UFT President and MLC leader Michael Mulgrew, expressed his disdain for the NY Health Act, saying, “You cannot bankrupt your state's economy to make a point."

Meanwhile, back at the parade — Jenny Roper, a municipal retiree who left the Human Resources Administration in 2010, talked about losing her husband to cancer last year.

“He was covered by my insurance,” she told Work-Bites following the parade. “And I think if we had lost this [Medicare] battle, I would have lost him sooner.” 

Neal Frumkin, vice-president of Inter-Union Relations for the DC37 Retirees Association, sounded energized following the exchange with union leaders. 

“We’ll turn out anywhere — anytime,” Frumkin said. “We’re in this fight for the long haul. We’re winning — and we’re not gonna be turned around.”