Retiree Advocate/UFT - Save our Medicare!

I learned about quilling at the December 2022 RTC meeting. Quilling is the craft of bending and rolling strands of paper into decorative objects. I wasn't expecting to learn about quilling when I went to that RTC meeting; I was expecting to debate the UFT's plans to move me, and everyone else at the meeting, into a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan. Tom Murphy, Mulgrew's man at the helm of the Retired Teachers Chapter, had other plans. He didn't want to talk about healthcare. He wanted us to learn about the craft of quilling.

A riff on the April RTC meeting

The April 16th RTC meeting was interesting indeed. First of all, it was finally revealed in a Unity brochure that Tom Murphy will be running for RTC chapter leader again. He's done such a great job of supporting Mulgrew's give away of retiree health benefits that he's being awarded the Aetna-Mulgrew Seal of Approval®.

ORGANIZE TO PROTECT AND IMPROVE RETIREE BENEFITS

• Protect our Healthcare from being privatized – No Medicare Advantage
• Protect our Pensions

Retiree Advocate/UFT is running against Unity caucus in the Retired Teachers Chapter elections this May. In the coming campaign you will hear Tom Murphy and Michael Mulgrew tell you that Retiree Advocate/UFT is somehow anathema to Union. You will hear that we are working with forces that would destroy unions. That is not merely speculation on my part. We've already been hearing it from both of them at RTC meetings, Delegate Assemblies, Executive Board meetings, and virtual town halls.

Campaign Statement from Bennett Fischer, RA Candidate for RTC Chapter Leader

For nearly three years Retiree Advocate/UFT, and our allies from other NYC municipal unions, have been fighting to preserve our traditional Medicare benefits. Those benefits have been put up for sale to private insurance corporations who would profit at the expense of our health, by limiting our care and denying us services.

We cannot allow the Medicare Advantage industry to make our healthcare decisions for us, with their computer algorithms and their shareholders’ profits in mind.  Our healthcare decisions must remain between us and our doctors.

From: Retiree Advocate/UFT 

For release February 16, 2024

Retiree Advocate/UFT seeks leadership of the UFT Retired Teachers Chapter — fighting to preserve Medicare benefits

Fighting Together for Retiree Rights

and wishing you a happy holiday season and a premium and co-pay free New Year!

A casual observer, listening to President Mulgrew's responses to questions at the November RTC meeting, would assume that our president has been battling the city for years, instead of working with the city to take away the retiree health benefits that UFT educators earned during our careers.