Though the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees held a rally on June 22 billed as a push for a City Council bill that would block Mayor Adams’ effort to eliminate traditional Medicare coverage for retired municipal workers, the retirees ended up with a new avenue for their fight.
After City Councilmember Charles Barron announced that he was introducing a bill to protect traditional Medicare at the stated meeting that day, state Assemblymember Kenneth Zebrowski, of Rockland County, took to the stage to say he is also introducing similar legislation at the state level.
“I can tell you that we are gonna double-team this issue because I’m holding in my hand today a bill to protect your retiree healthcare,” Zebrowski told the crowd of hundreds of retirees from a ladder that formed a stage at the event.
Both Barron’s and Zebrowski’s bills are aimed at preventing New York public employers from changing or in the state bill “diminishing” retiree benefits like the Medigap plan that the city retirees currently have.
Zebrowski’s effort would extend to all state employees. Barron’s effort is focused solely on the city’s attempt to enroll retirees in a privatized Medicare Advantage Plan that the city says would save $600 million in annual health care costs.
“You did all of this work for all of these years for this city, making littler wages than people are making now and the one thing they guaranteed you is healthcare and now they’re trying to turn their backs on you,” Barron said at the rally.
Though members of the retirees association have participated in a long, persistent campaign against the Advantage plan, a majority of the city’s municipal labor leaders voted for it in March. Those leaders are now mobilizing against Barron’s bill.
District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido reportedly sent out a letter to his members criticizing the bill as undermining the municipal unions’ collective bargaining and raising concerns over funding. The Daily News reported that Garrido has also threatened to withdraw support from Council members who back Barron’s bill.
In spite of the resistance, Barron introduced the bill in the Council’s stated meeting on June 22, and was able to secure a bi-partisan cohort of 10 other co-sponsors including progressives like Christopher Marte and Shahana Hanif and Republicans like Joanna Ariola and Inna Vernikov.
“We’re gonna keep working it until we get to that magic number of 34 because 34 is an override of a mayoral veto,” Barron told LaborPress.
As these two bills wend their way through the process, the retirees’ other effort to stop the healthcare switch with an injunction in state court is set to see a decision as soon as the week of July 4, according to Marianne Pizzitola, president of the Organization of Public Service Retirees. Over the past week, the city filed a memorandum opposing the lawsuit and a caucus of Republican Councilmembers filed an amicus brief in favor of it.
