By Bob Hennelly

 This week a growing coalition of labor, faith-based, and advocacy non-profits that support seniors, the disabled and New York’s low wealth households will be turning up the pressure on Albany to resist what they say are draconian healthcare budget cuts proposed by Gov. Kathleen Hochul.

By Raanan Geberer

There was a time when getting a “good city job” was good advice. Traditionally, civil service has also provided marginalized populations and individuals with difficulties in their lives with avenues to prosperity they might not have otherwise enjoyed.

By Steve Wishnia

Hundreds of home health-care attendants packed the sidewalk outside City Hall on Apr. 12, demanding that the City Council pass a bill to limit their shifts to 12 hours and end the system of them working 24-hour shifts for 13 hours’ pay.

By Bob Hennelly

While close to a thousand New York City retired civil servants rallied outside City Hall to protest Mayor Adams’ deal with Aetna’s Medicare Advantage Plan, inside it was business as usual. On April 11, the City Council passed several bills including legislation to ban the commercial sale of Guinea pigs which had evidently proliferated during the pandemic.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Richard Alles and 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund activist John Feal were outspoken at this week’s massive rally against efforts to strip New York City municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program — tearing into both Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] for spearheading the drive. Here’s a sample:

By Joe Maniscalco

The supposedly most progressive New York City Council to date could choose to advance proposed legislation protecting traditional Medicare benefits for municipal retirees — instead it’s watching ailing senior citizens fighting for what they’ve earned collapse on the streets and being out-lefted by the Republican members in its ranks.

By Steve Wishnia

With a bill to end home health-care aides’ punishing 24-hour shifts on hold in the City Council, activists are planning a rally outside City Hall Wednesday, Apr. 12, to push Speaker Adrienne Adams to schedule a vote on the measure.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees urging Mayor Eric Adams to revisit the health insurance contract he just signed with Aetna to include an option for traditional Medicare want Hizzoner to know they’re just as “strong and determined” as millions of French people in the streets protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s grossly undemocratic bid to raise France’s retirement age to 62.

By Steve Wishnia

New York City has signed a contract with the Aetna insurance company to provide a private Medicare Advantage health-insurance plan to the about 250,000 retired municipal workers. The deal, announced Mar. 30 by Mayor Eric Adams and Office of Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion, means retirees will no longer be able to use traditional Medicare unless they pay for coverage themselves.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Three years after New Jersey was upended by the COVID virus, a coalition of New Jersey’s healthcare unions are warning that without a legally enforceable nurse to patient ratio, nurses will continue to leave the state’s acute care hospitals already facing a skilled nursing shortage.

By Bob Hennelly

Dozens of outraged New York City retired civil servants dialed into a teleconferenced public hearing convened by the city’s Office of Labor Relations on March 21, a legal perquisite to advance the controversial $200 million Aetna Medicare Advantage contract being promoted by the Adams administration and the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC].

By Steve Wishnia

A group of seven New York City municipal retirees protesting NYC’s plan to privatize their Medicare coverage slipped into the Conrad Hilton hotel today in Battery Park City where the Aetna insurance company was about to hold a session to prepare union staff on how to tell retirees about the company’s Medicare Advantage plan.

Editor’s Note: Harry Weiner is lifelong New Yorker who devoted more than 30 years of his life working for the New York City Housing Authority. As as an IBT Local 237 member, Harry feels his union betrayed him when it voted in favor of stripping NYC municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and pushing them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan with Aetna.

This is his open letter to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander urging him to investigate the Municipal Labor Committee’s Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna.

By Joe Maniscalco

Retired New York City librarian Dana Simon was in an Aetna managed care plan back in 2007 when the night before she was scheduled to have her cochlear implant replaced — she received a call from the for-profit health insurance company warning her to cancel the surgery because they weren’t covering the operation.

By Joe Maniscalco

The Municipal Labor Committee’s [MLC] ability to legitimately represent public service unions across New York City is openly being called into question this week following Thursday’s weighted vote helping Mayor Eric Adams’ administration strip civil service workers of their traditional Medicare health benefits and push them into profit-driven Medicare Advantage program run by insurance giant Aetna.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] may be poised on Thursday to endorse an agreement with Aetna to privatize health care for hundreds of thousands of city employees — but it’s hard for Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains’ Association, to comprehend why any union would be endorsing a profit-driven scheme like Medicare Advantage.

By Joe Maniscalco

To no one’s surprise, but to the absolute horror of many — Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] have gone ahead and thrown back the blast doors on the nukes pointed at traditional Medicare health insurance in New York City and started the countdown to launch.

By Bob Hennelly

It came as no surprise to Maurice Walls, a proud TWU Local 100 elevator mechanic, that a recent City Council analysis found the MTA and its union workforce did a much better job keeping its escalator and elevators operating than the contractors doing that work for sites where real estate developers are responsible for their operation.