New York City is a Union Town. Unfortunately, unaccountable union leaders like Michael Mulgrew have made unilateral moves to throw New York City retirees under the bus by negotiating away their healthcare benefits in retirement for a measly raise for current workers.
The New York Young Republican Club will loudly call out this theft of retirees’ health benefits in a doomed effort to resolve decades of mismanagement by city and labor oversight teams.
Due to the structure of a weighted vote based on membership, a small minority overruled the majority of the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) to throw their dedicated former colleagues under the bus onto an inferior health care plan that is more expensive, less accessible, and will costs lives – to save a paltry $600 million per year on an annual budget of over $100 Billion.
While the city retirees have fought and advocated hard for the benefits they were promised, our City Council has sat motionless in resolving this issue. We have a fiscally irresponsible and delusional leadership run by those who care more about the politics of union endorsements than doing the right thing and helping our senior dedicated public servants who have sacrificed for our city.
The Council has historically stood up for Retirees as it did in 2001 when a bipartisan coalition of council members overruled a Mayor when he tried to diminish municipal retirees’ benefits. Now, it falls on the Council again to go around the three political power players (the union leaders, the mayor, and the speaker) of this city to preserve what was promised to countless city employees decades ago, including to first responders who stood on Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The New York Young Republican Club calls on any one of the 51 City Council Members to step up to the plate and introduce legislation aimed to shore up health benefits for city retirees that were promised and negotiated years ago.
City retirees need a champion, and we look forward to advocating on their side while also advancing measures to achieve cost-savings that are necessary and appropriate in pursuit of a balanced budget and the restoration of fiscal discipline to the city.