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We want you to know that we were just like you, loyal union members in the City of New York. Many of us have been retired for 10, 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years already. We were made certain promises and had collective-bargaining agreements just like you do. Our agreements stated that the insurance we had in employment would continue into retirement until our death. As retirees, we are also entitled to Medicare B reimbursement. These are all benefits our unions fought for during our tenure.

Sadly, it seems the union position, which used to be one of protecting its workers, is to now make side deals behind members’ backs. Unions have been systematically selling out every New York City retiree. And they used you to do it. You ratified your recent contracts incorporating a 2014 and 2018 agreement by the MLC into your contracts that permitted your union presidents to vote on an agreement to strip away the healthcare from every city retiree as we knew it, in order to benefit the active workers, and the money that went to our health insurance now goes to fund your raises and fill budget shortfalls. And here is the Give Back List they are working on now!

You currently have a wide variety of insurance options as an employee. And so did we as retirees. But your unions took all that away. Now they are trying to force us into one new inferior plan. They tried to force us to pay a penalty premium if we stay in the plan we currently have and we had to sue to stop them. As retirees, we no longer have union representation. No union is legally able to represent us. It is why the benefits we had at the time of our retirement is what we get to keep. We can no longer vote on contracts and we can’t vote on your union officers (UFT retirees have a weighted vote of Officers).

Now you’re being told that retirees are the reason you may lose benefits. That could not be further from the truth. 

Below are a series of videos explaining how this happened. What you are going to hear is very disturbing. It was for us too when we first heard it, as we felt our former unions sold us out. Unions, that were our families, or so we thought, for over 50 years. Watch these presentations, check our website www.nycretirees.org and then check the NYS Court site for our filings.

We hope you will ask your Unions why they sold us out and had you ratify the collective bargaining agreements that put us in this situation.

You can find Collective Bargaining and Health Savings Agreements here.