Thanks, NYC Retirees! You’re Uplifting The Entire Labor Movement

Municipal retirees have been holding spirited street actions against Medicare Advantage since the fall of 2021. Photos By Joe Maniscalco

By Joe Maniscalco

Their chief antagonists may happen to be some of the most influential union leaders in New York City —  but municipal retirees refusing to be stripped of their traditional Medicare health insurance and pushed into a scandalous for-profit Medicare Advantage program are exercising as much labor power as any heroic Amazon warehouse worker or Starbucks barista — and that’s how they ought to be celebrated this week.

The courage service industry workers in their 20s and 30s are showing risking all and taking on their corporate overlords is as inspiring as it gets — but for this longtime labor reporter’s money, no one is providing working class people with a better blueprint for confronting entrenched political power and emerging victorious than the stalwart New York City municipal retirees who just beat back the latest attempt to privatize their hard-earned healthcare.

We’re talking about retired office workers, educators and first-responders — some of them well into their 80’s or beyond, some actively battling cancer, or other serious life-threatening issues — all of whom, nevertheless, dug down deep into their trade unionist roots after first learning about the Medicare Advantage push in the fall of 2021 — and immediately started educating, agitating, and organizing.

They got creative and hit the streets; took their case to the courthouse; and petitioned elected officials regardless of their party affiliation and demanded self-proclaimed people-centered politicos walk the walk.

NYC municipal retirees march down Broadway on December 21, 2022 to protest ongoing efforts to push them in a for-profit Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.

They defied City Hall and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee — not to mention the editorial boards of both the New York Post and New York Daily News who tried to dismiss them as privileged cranks — and stood strong.

They took care of each other; looked out for one another; held each other up — and kept their eyes on the prize. They refused to buckle and they would not be bullied. They showed the rest of us what trade unionism and collective action is all about.

And they aren’t done yet.

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees President Marianne Pizzitola (left) continues to be one of the most powerful forces behind the movement to protect retiree healthcare.

Members of the New York City Council have shown they have little “appetite” for changing the Administrative Code safeguarding retiree healthcare at this time — but it remains unclear if Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee understand health insurance insider-turned-Medicare Advantage critic Wendell Potter when he says the program is a dangerous “money-making scam.”

That’s okay, though, like their stalwart counterparts in Delaware fighting back against the Medicare Advantage push in that state, New York City’s fighting municipal retirees are already preparing for the next round in this terrible bout.

Retired UFT educator and Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee member Sarah Shapiro (center) helps lead the December 21, demonstration outside UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway in New York City.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics happened to release the latest statistics on unionization rates this past week. Let’s say the numbers were inconclusive.

Two-hundred-thousand more workers were unionized last year over the year prior, but the share of workers represented by a union actually declined slightly from 11.6 percent to 11.3 percent. Thank the more than 230,000 people of color who joined the ranks of the trade union movement in 2022 for pumping up the figures.

One way to look at the latest numbers is the way the Economic Policy Institute is looking at them and concluding there are a lot more workers out there who would like to unionize, but can’t because of entrenched anti-worker laws left on the books.

This is certainly true.

NYC municipal retirees fighting the campaign to push them Medicare Advantage have never been afraid to do what it takes to win.

But a further way to look at the numbers is there are a lot more workers out there who would absolutely bust their butts to unionize if they felt doing so would really empower them and give them a voice. Today’s unionization rate is still less than half of what it was roughly 40 years ago.

As demonstrated here in New York City, many workers — both active and retired — are frustrated because they do not feel they have any ownership of their own unions. They feel disempowered. They feel they aren’t being seen or heard. Many feel betrayed.

New York City’s municipal retirees fighting to retain their traditional Medicare health insurance certainly feel the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee have betrayed workers. We know that at Work-Bites.com because we get their letters.

Back in September, as part of Work-Bites.com's autumnal launch, Vermont AFL-CIO leader David Van Deusen talked about organization efforts in his own state and the remedy for organized labor’s democracy deficit.

“We’re actually getting folks involved,” he said. “And not just in a couple of minor things here and there on the behalf of [political] candidates —but coming in and debating the future of Labor; coming in and being part of the decision-making process, and what our strategic path will be over the next two, three, four, five years.”

The Vermont labor leader called his pro-democracy agenda a “multi-front effort to build a democracy within our own ranks and also defend it and expand it in society at large.”  The overall result, Van Deusen said, would be nothing less than “the empowerment of the working class.”

How empowered do you think New York City’s 300,000 active municipal workers and 250,000 retirees feel knowing the Taylor Law might prohibit union leaders from bargaining on their behalf once their work is done, but have a lot to say about the fate of their retiree benefits when they are needed most?

Educate. Agitate. Organize.

New York City municipal retirees are successfully battling back against the Medicare Advantage push because they’re using the time-honored tactics and strategies they learned as lifelong trade unionists. They’re empowering themselves and all those municipal “retirees-in-training” coming up right behind them. They’re also empowering working class people far beyond the borders of New York City.

All you have to do is pay attention to what retirees are doing here in NYC — and how they’re getting it done.