DC37 Retirees Association leader Neal Frumkin joined a protest outside a Sunset Park public sector jobs fair against switching their plans to Medicare Advantage, Aug. 28, 2023.
Published: Aug 28, 2023
Nearly two dozen municipal retirees crashed a planned press conference by Mayor Eric Adams Monday afternoon to protest his administration’s continued push for a privatized health care plan for retirees known as Medicare Advantage.
While the mayor and labor leaders spoke inside a municipal career fair at Sunset Park High School, retirees outside held signs that read “unions don’t privatize Medicare” and “retirees fight!”
Earlier this month, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge blocked the Adams administration’s planned rollout of the controversial Medicare Advantage plan that was slated to go into effect on Sept. 1. The Adams administration vowed to appeal the decision and continue pursuing the plan.
Adams dropped by the career fair to promote “good paying civil service jobs” alongside Lee Saunders, president of the national American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Henry Garrido, executive director of NYC’s District Council 37. Their two organizations co-hosted the event with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
DC 37, the city’s largest municipal workers union and a member of AFSCME, has an outsize influence on matters that go before the Municipal Labor Committee, the consortium of 102 public-sector labor unions that brokered the Medicare Advantage deal with the Adams administration.
Due to the committee’s weighted voting system where unions get one vote per 250 members, DC 37 and the United Federation of Teachers alone have the clout to sway elections.
Asked about the retirees protesting outside, the mayor noted that he himself is a city retiree (from the NYPD) and that “that is my plan.”
“I think people gave the impression that this is going to take away from their benefits, which is not actually true, and we’re going to show them how this is a great plan,” Adams told THE CITY in response to questions about the protesters. “The unions who represent them are in support of dealing with the real economic challenges we’re having around health care, and we’re going to make sure we get a good plan for everyone.”
The shift could save the city as much as $600 million a year, helping to pay for current employee’s salaries and benefits.
The handful of retirees who remained by the end of the event two hours later booed the mayor as he exited the school.
“After us working for so long, having been promised — yes, let’s make sure that word is clear — promised a certain level of care, we no longer can have security in our retirement because now we have to deal with how our healthcare may change,” said Michelle Keller, who retired in 2018 after 43 years in civil service. “This is not a way a country — a city — treats its most vulnerable populations.”
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