Your memory is correct in that the City and MLC agreed to find healthcare savings as part of a contract negotiation in 2014. The contract in question was to give teachers the same 4 + 4% raises other Unions received in 2008, but, were denied by Bloomberg after the Wall Street collapse. However, those raises were paid from the Healthcare Stabilization Fund that is now going bankrupt. In short, today's crisis isn't about rising healthcare costs, it is about mismanagement/misuse of a dedicated fund for purposes it wasn't intended for - i.e. RAISES rather than insurance premiums. The MLC should never have agreed to this deal and now the only options left are bad and worse. Neither Adams nor the MLC can go "nuclear" if the City Council refuses to allow changes to Section 12-126 as they will lose in court. The Unions may have to consider reducing benefits, starting salaries or other measures for future hires; this is the way they have historically dealt with funding raises for active workers and it is what they should have done back in 2014.
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