Will the MLC Ever Change its Spots in New York City?
New York City municipal retirees took to the streets of Lower Manhattan in 2023 and called for reforming the Municipal Labor Committee after the MLC attempted to fast-track a plan to push retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.
By Joe Maniscalco
The heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] got what they wanted this week with members rubber-stamping a new city health plan for all municipal workers, pre-Medicare retirees, and their dependents.
Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams—like any other slick salesman trying to sell something that’s gonna cost you—touted the NYCE PPO’s “10,000 additional health care providers; 20,000 more mental health providers; and broad national network of over 1.6 million providers.”
What he didn’t care to mention in his Sept. 30 statement—as the Educators of NYC excellently point out—is the advent of a new monolithic central authority called “UMR” that, if the plan takes effect, will now determine whether or not active city workers, pre-Medicare retirees, and their dependents get the care their doctors have prescribed them.
Hizzoner also didn’t mention the unrestrained use of Artificial Intelligence in evaluating claims, or the so-called “Clean Claims” scam that could make it possible for the profit-obsessed executives at United Healthcare and Emblem Health to further reject and delay medical necessary claims for virtually any concocted reason they dream up.
The Adams administration and the rest of the NYCE PPO’s salesforce at the MLC made sure to keep key elements of the contract’s language redacted and under wraps so that nobody could really understand what it actually contained before a vote was taken.
As UA Plumbers Local 1 Business Manager Paul O’Connor, told Work-Bites earlier this week, his union was kept completely in the dark about the NYCE PPO.
“I don’t have any information to give my members,” O’Connor said. “We just have to accept it—and we’re not happy about it.”
MLC Executive Secretary Ellen Medwid, however, insists member unions have been provided “ample information concerning the healthcare contract.”
More than 200 New York City retirees rallied outside the gates of City Hall on Oct. 12, 2022.
Although there’s a great deal of reticence to talk about it, there are a lot of people inside the MLC who are not happy about the grossly undemocratic and unrepresentative way the organization favors the wishes of District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew over those of union leaders with far fewer members.
Those leaders have expressed their displeasure and disillusionment with the MLC to Work-Bites and wondered out loud why they even remain in the organization. The Plumbers got out of the MLC in 2014.
Two years ago, a group of 35 retired union leaders signed onto a letter to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams decrying the MLC’s attempts to suppress and sabotage passage of an earlier bill aimed at blocking the mayor from stripping municipal retirees of the traditional Medicare and MediGap benefits they earned on the job and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.
“The Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] and others are being less than truthful in telling you that supporting Intro 1099-2023 is an attack on collective bargaining,” the Sept. 7, 2023 letter stated. “We strongly disagree with that statement. As former labor officials, we have the utmost respect for collective bargaining. However, collective bargaining cannot conflict with federal, state or municipal laws and retirees cannot bargain. Very simply, the Taylor law specifically prohibits unions—or the MLC, from bargaining for retired employees.”
The heads of the MLC insisted, however, that the measure somehow did impinge on collective bargaining rights—as they continue to assert today in their ongoing opposition to Intro. 1096—current legislation aimed at protecting municipal retirees from the Medicare Advantage push Mayor Adams abandoned—at least for now—back in June.
“Unfortunately, the MLC has been less than trustworthy about a lot of issues lately,” NYC Laborers Local 924 President Kyle Simmons told Work-Bites back in 2023. “It goes to show the depth they are willing to deceive the individuals they took an oath to represent. I only wish that the [active civil service workers] were also motivated on this issue.”
Retired Deputy Fire Chief Richard Alles prior to that jeered Garrido, Mulgrew, and former MLC Chair Harry Nespoli as “scabs” during an anti-Medicare Advantage rally held outside the gates of City Hall on Oct. 12, 2022.
“Brothers and sisters, never before in the history of New York City have we had a couple of big union representatives that are conspiring with the City administration to take away our benefits,” Alles said. “Never ever has that happened.”
New York City municipal retirees who continue to fight for passage of Intro. 1096 also called out the MLC’s undemocratic nature two years ago, after the organization voted to okay an earlier effort to foist Medicare Advantage on them that, if successful, would have gone into effect September 1, 2023.
That was another instance, as Work-Bites reported at the time, where the MLC’s vote on a summary agreement with Aetna “went ahead without members actually seeing the finalized contract, various union members abstaining, and lots of shutout retirees calling the whole thing an undemocratic sham.”
“If the city is going to negotiate with the Municipal Labor Committee for our health benefits then the Municipal Labor Committee needs to represent all of our union rank and file members,” retired public school teacher and Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] member Sarah Shapiro told Work-Bites at a rally near Battery Park on March 9, 2023. “It’s a sham if two unions vote and control the entire decision. That system is not working for all of us — and we have to change that.”
Nespoli stepped down from his post as longtime MLC chair back in May. Critics of the organization say this is an opportunity for change to finally happen and give other union members outside DC37 and UFT a real voice in how the MLC actually operates.
That’s not likely to happen, however, if Garrido or Teamsters Local 237 President Greg Floyd—two of the top names being bandied about to succeed Nespoli—actually gets the post.
Floyd snapped at protesters outside the offices of DC37 on Tuesday as he entered the building to cast his “yes” vote for the NYCE PPO.
“Don’t bother me,” he said as protesters called for greater transparency from the MLC.
“Gregory Floyd should have recused himself from the vote,” Work-Bites reader Harry Weiner later wrote in response. “A review of government records revealed that EmblemHealth donated $550,000 since 2018 to charities on behalf of Mr.Floyd, also paying for tickets in an Emblem-reserved Barclays Center suite for him. And he serves on their Board of Directors. So it is no shock that he voted to award Emblem the contract. He is shamelessly in the pocket of the insurance company. And he has disqualified himself from succeeding Harry Nespoli as Chair of the MLC.”
Work-Bites made repeated attempts to reach the MLC for comment on this story before going to press—but those queries have gone unanswered.