New York public employee retired win big on healthcare. UFT President Michael Mulgrew and Mayor Eric Adams suffer a humiliating defeat.
Today the privatization of retiree healthcare for public workers suffered a setback.
After a long fierce battle between current New York City retirees including retired public school teachers and the head of their union and their mayor, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge issued a ruling Friday “permanently” prohibiting New York City from switching its 250,000 retired employees and their elderly or disabled dependents to a privatized Medicare Advantage plan managed by Aetna.
How permanent is permanent?
Only time will tell as we can expect the city to appeal the judge’s ruling.
But it’s a big win nonetheless.
In his decision, the judge ordered the city “permanently enjoined from requiring any City retirees, and their dependents from being removed from their current health insurance plan(s), and from being required to either enroll in an Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan or seek their own health coverage.”
Explaining his decision, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Lyle Frank wrote that the retirees “have shown that numerous promises were made by the City to then-New York City employees and future retirees that they would receive a Medicare supplemental plan when they retired, and that their first level of coverage once that retired would [be] Medicare.”
Mayor Adams’ plan was to switch retirees as of September 1st.
Adams had the support of the Municipal Labor Committee, a consortium of 102 public sector unions.
The MLC voted to approve the Aetna contract in March.
It was a shameful sellout of current and future retirees.
Judge Frank’s ruling is a humiliating defeat for the public worker union leadership.
“This is now the third time in the last two years that courts have had to step in and stop the City from violating retirees’ healthcare rights,” Marianne Pizzitola, the head of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, said in a statement Friday afternoon. “We once again call on the City and the Municipal Labor Committee to end their ruthless and unlawful campaign to deprive retired municipal workers of the healthcare benefits they earned.”