Being an elected official comes with a responsibility that includes not being bought by “special interests.” But the special interests some politicians are controlled by are our own former unions.
Unions had a responsibility to protect retirees like Margaret, who spent 40 years in the Department of Education. Instead, they tried to privatize her vested Medicare benefits and imposed predatory medical costs on Margaret, whose husband has cancer and needs treatment three times a week.
They call it “behavioral economics.” The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and DC37 made union deals to finance contracts that retirees do not benefit from because they are no longer in the union. In English, NYC unions sold off retiree benefits and imposed costs on them to finance raises for current workers, leaving retirees like Margaret in an affordability crisis requiring a food pantry to survive.
What’s worse is these same “leaders” lied to politicos, telling them they represent current retirees and bargain for our benefits. Wrong. What they did was illegal and immoral.
These are all the things a retired unionist should never have had to say against their union, never mind out loud. I was a proud union member, Local 2507 and previously 1199. I helped workers navigate benefits, pensions, and defended members’ contractual rights, grievance, and was a delegate.
Protecting members’ rights was my passion and my last battle was 9/11 healthcare. For the last five years, my passion has been preserving medical care that was promised to retirees, Medicare and a city-paid supplement.
Retirees like Margaret knew a law gave them healthcare: “The City will pay the full cost of health coverage.” They relied on it. But her union and the Mayor stole that.
Previously, my battles were against management – this time I’ve been fighting my former union, DC37 and Margaret’s, UFT for her and retirees.
We also have to deal with a secretive union umbrella group known as the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) that the UFT leader likes to blame for making these decisions, not mentioning he holds the largest single vote in that committee and they initiated this mess.
The UFT had been in a nine-year war with Mayor Bloomberg for a raise. Mayor de Blasio awarded a contract, but with a catch – the UFT had to convince the MLC to allocate $1 billion from a health fund back to the City to offset the cost of teacher raises and increase the cost of healthcare for retirees to secure it.
Then DC37 attempted to persuade the city council to shift retirees from Traditional Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan – a privatized, predatory alternative to Medicare that happens to be the default plan in Project 2025. I organized retirees and sued the city to stop this. In 2022, Mayor Adams and the MLC tried to change the law we won our court decisions on to force us into Medicare Advantage.
We won an injunction, then they illegally imposed medical costs on us for the first time in 60 years to finance raises for the unions’ contracts on retirees’ backs – literally. The Court stopped the costs for two years, and then Mayor Adams reassessed them by changing our healthcare contract in 2025, putting us back into an affordability crisis. He refused to meet with us. This lack of leadership harmed retirees because now every time they have to see a doctor, they have to decide if they can afford to go, and still pay their rent or medicines, a concern they didn’t previously have.
They all stole from retirees like Margaret. After deductions, her pension is about $29,000. Her cost of living adjustment for 2026 is +$216. The drug plan rose $60/month and she’s in medical debt over $4,000 from the Mayor’s cost transfer, and now needs assistance from a food bank. Her husband’s cancer diagnosis will now incur more costs three times a week for chemo treatment.
Margaret is in her 70s and served the DOE as a UFT member for 40 years. Margaret calls me crying, like many retirees desperate for the city to stop what the union and Mayors did to us and asks why the City and our former unions are trying to kill us.
We introduced legislation, but unions threatened to withhold campaign funding to anyone who supported it. The bill was blocked by council members currying favor with those unions, so we introduced another one. Outgoing Speaker Adrienne Adams then threatened council members with committee seats and funding if they supported us. The Civil Service and Labor Committee Chair Carmen De La Rosa refused to allow our bill to have a democratic hearing because she said the Speaker didn’t want it to have one.
We introduced a state bill to help all municipal retirees from being forced into Medicare Advantage but the AFL-CIO NYS Regional Director, Mario Cilento, lobbied against it and did the same in the City. They said our bill violated collective bargaining! Lies and intimidation.
Why would unions hurt retired unionists? So they can continue to leverage the value of current retirees’ healthcare as a bargaining chip.
Is there anyone with the courage to help 250,000 Margaret’s preserve our healthcare and pensions?
Marianne Pizzitola is president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees.
