BRIEF REVIEW OF UFT CONTRACT AND CITY LAW ON HEALTHCARE

Michael Mulgrew sent an email early this morning to active UFT members on healthcare (see below). He must have seen our petition calling for a vote before any changes can take effect.

As healthcare is front and center on everyone's mind, here is part of what the UFT Contract and City law say about healthcare:

Contract Article 3G1

The Board agrees to arrange for, and make available to each day school teacher, a choice of health and hospital insurance coverage from among designated plans and the Board agrees to pay the full cost of such coverage.

As for the law, this is from Administrative Code 12-126:

(1)   The city will pay the entire cost of health insurance coverage for city employees, city retirees, and their dependents, not to exceed one hundred percent of the full cost of H.I.P.-H.M.O. on a category basis. 

We have strong legal and contractual language protecting our premium free healthcare. Changes should strengthen what we have now and we should vote on them. The UFT's job is not to save the City money but to represent its members.

Mulgrew's email:

Dear _______, We are writing to give you an update on our in-service health care. All of our members have and will continue to have access to premium-free health care.  As you know, the UFT is one of the few teachers' unions in the country that still offers premium-free health care coverage for members, and New York City is one of the last cities in the country where municipal employees and retirees have this benefit. We are proud of that and must protect it, even in the face of rising health care costs.  It is our strong belief that an employer should not be negotiating our health benefits with insurance providers unless we are at the table. That is why we are always at the table. This is the power of a strong union: We use our strength in numbers and our expertise to guarantee that our members get the health care coverage they need and deserve.  This year, when deciding whether or not to renew our current in-service GHI CBP health care plan, the Municipal Labor Committee, along with the city, put out a request for proposals (RFP). The goal is to use this process to find which insurance company will be the best partner to enable us to lock in our premium-free health care with no diminishment of benefits. The city and the MLC have identified four qualified bidders and their proposed plans are under review as part of a negotiated acquisition process. We have an agreement with the city that any savings we achieve will be put back into in-service health care benefits to keep them strong.  We just completed negotiations with Aetna on a new health care plan for all Medicare-eligible city retirees that preserves our retirees’ premium-free health care, lowers their out-of-pocket costs and improves their benefits. It was only because we continued to advocate and refused to back down during the negotiation process that this plan became as strong as it is.  We will continue to keep you updated as negotiations proceed, and we won’t stop working to ensure that UFT members do not bear the burden of the increasing cost of health care throughout the country.

Sincerely, Michael Mulgrew UFT President