UFT's Mulgrew, heading into 6th term, prioritizes healthcare, Tier 6 reforms

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, is focused on fixing Tier 6, raising paraprofessionals’ pay, and improving healthcare for his members and other municipal workers.

The longtime union leader won his sixth term, securing 54 percent of the vote in a tight race in which he faced off against two slates, A Better Contract and ARISE. 

“I knew we had three real groups of people running right now, so getting over 50 percent was going to be difficult,” Mulgrew said during a Monday phone interview. 

He celebrated the fact that, while union elections typically have stagnant levels of participation, there was a 15-percent increase in turnout in this year’s contest compared with the election three years ago. “But we want more people voting,” he added.

There’s now another election for Mulgrew and the UFT to focus on: the mayoral race. With the early voting period for the primary election two weeks away, the union has yet to announce its endorsements in the ranked-choice contest. 

Currently, there is a split among members of the UFT’s political action committee regarding who the union should endorse, with some supporting Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and others backing the front-runner, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, according to Mulgrew.

He said that some members have argued in favor of Cuomo, “despite all of the baggage," because of his years of government experience. Mulgrew also noted that Cuomo expressed his support for fixing Tier 6 during a mayoral forum hosted by the UFT, and was the only candidate to champion legislation backed by the union to provide raises to paraprofessionals.

But, Mulgrew added, the split over which candidate to endorse has been a cause of contention. The UFT’s election was also contentious, with the union leader describing the campaigning process as “ugly.”

“Everything is weaponized,” he said. “We have to start getting back together, because this being polarized isn’t good for the union.”

Introduced by Cuomo in April 2012, the Tier 6 pension plan raised the retirement age, limited early retirement options, required workers to contribute more into their plans as their salaries increased and capped the amount of pensionable overtime pay for municipal workers.

Many unions — including New York State United Teachers, the UFT’s parent union — have urged state legislators to fix Tier 6. “We’ve got to get back down to the age of 55 and lower the contributions,” Mulgrew said. “You hear about agencies not being able to hire and Tier 6 is part of the reason why.”

Many state legislators did not take up the Tier 6 issue last year given that it was an election year. “This year we believe we’ll get a lot more cooperation,” Mulgrew noted.

The union is also pushing the City Council to pass legislation that would provide paraprofessionals with annual payments of at least $10,000. Full-time paras earn $31,787 annually, and the low pay has been attributed to a severe shortage in the title.

"People think it's a game for the election, but it's not. We're in a crisis. We're trying to do anything to avert a crisis," Mulgrew explained.

Then there's addressing healthcare costs. The Adams administration and the Municipal Labor Committee must now negotiate the details of a proposed health benefit plan for 750,000 city employees, pre-Medicare retirees and their dependents.

The proposed plan will be jointly administered by the insurance companies EmblemHealth and UnitedHealthcare, Mayor Eric Adams announced last week.

“Picking the vendor is just the first step. We’re going to get very aggressive,” said Mulgrew, who is also the MLC's executive vice chair. “We were clear — we had to expand the number of doctors dramatically … and it’s got to be premium-free. We’re not going to the table saying we’re giving up stuff.”

He was supportive of using the buying power of 750,000 city workers and their families to reduce the cost of their healthcare plan. But he no longer sanctions a plan to shift 250,000 municipal retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan. Mulgrew called the city’s rollout of that plan, which has been vehemently opposed by many municipal retirees and the subject of several lawsuits, “horrible.”

“When the members speak [out against the plan], you say ‘OK, I’m out,’” he said of his decision to withdraw support of the MLC-backed Medicare Advantage switch.

clewis@thechiefleader.com