They can't go on strike thanks to the Taylor Laws. It's illegal for public workers to go on strike in New York, even when part of a union. We only let NYPD go on silent strikes and work stoppages because, let's be honest, who's gonna stop them?

>Does the new health plan cost more

It costs more when a cheaper insurance plan covers less services and fewer doctors accept it.

Because city workers are no longer guaranteed quality healthcare upon retirement. They will get a worse health care package that costs then more, covers less and has less options for doctors. When you really think about it, this is just a ploy to help retired workers die sooner due to substandard care.

So watching all of this play out, who would a prospective worker faced with lower salary and no schedule flexibility choose this route? They'll ultimately end up with less funds saved to cover the out of pocket expenses than someone making $20k more at a similar job in the private sector.

Yes, they will. They will pay for more out of pocket because less will be covered. They will have fewer options for local doctors, meaning many may need to go out of network for specialty care. Medicare Advantage isn't Medicare, it's a private insurance company chosen because they intend to nickel and dime aging retirees who require more healthcare.

Most city unions who aren't cops or DOC officers have very little power in a city where it's illegal for city workers to go on strike.

People who retired in the last few years didn't begin at $41k. You're awfully naive if you think most city workers are being land market rate or are getting significant pay bumps just because they've worked for decades.

>most teachers are Republicans anyway

Lol citation needed

The irony is it costs way more to make people access services only in an emergency rather than allowing people access to affordable preventative medicine. The decline in benefits costs us all more in the long run.

>"Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor."

I think about this quote from the musical 1776 a lot. It explains American conservative voters pretty well. How else to explain how people living in impoverished states were pushing to end the Estate tax when Trump took office.

So how are the retirees on a fixed income who were promised these benefits supposed to absorb it? For perspective, this would only save $500 million a year. That is less than 2/3 of what we spent on NYPD overtime alone in 2022. There are ways we could save this money, but it's much easier to fuck over retirees I guess.

And it's still not enough to live on and definitely won't be enough 20-30 years from now.

It's wild that we allow this private low quality health plan to use the word "Medicare" in its title. Privatizing Medicare is a mistake.

Does job security matter if you still can't retire on a living wage with basic healthcare required for older people?

We already know that city workers make less than private sector counterparts. This is well known and I'm not going to argue with you about it.

The MTA isn't a city agency. You are wrong, very wrong, and trying to push me on this? Ok.

You must know a lot of cops who flee to Florida. Because it's not normal for middle and lower income New Yorkers to pick up their life and move to fucking Florida because they retire. That's not cheap.

And don't pretend to speak for Millennials. Any Millennial who has thought for more than a few minutes on this subject knows that us fucking over these retirees means we are only fucking over ourselves. Every time we take away retiree benefits for current retirees we're making it less and less likely we will ever be able to retire.

Efficient for who, aside from the few at the very top?

Exactly. These retirees were promised these benefits. They're on a fixed income. $100-200 extra per month (plus extra healthcare costs they're now on the hook for) can make or break many people.

MTA isn't a city agency.

So what do you think people who aren't millionaires, the vast majority of people in NYC, are supposed to do after spending their life serving people in the city where they live? Throw themselves off a cliff?

People forget that even when you have a "good" pension, if your highest salary in city work was only $40k, you're only making a percentage of that upon retirement. That is a very low fixed income. Most city workers don't get that sweet NYPD, FDNY, DSNY overtime they can tack on to retirement. Add an extra $100-200 a month for worse healthcare and fewer doctors and that's enough to really push people over the edge.

Tier 6 pension is not as good as being paid more $$ annually and putting into a 401k. This isn't a gravy train. I know people who retired city service after 3 decades and maxed out around $41k salary at retirement. Even with a better pension tier they will be living in poverty despite their pension. It is only as good as the salary is.

When you're talking about people taking advantage of OT, you're mostly talking about cops, firefighters and sanitation. I agree we should go after them specifically, but they aren't the rule.

There's been a ton of back and forth on this and you're going to get a totally different spin from the city and from retirees. The base of it is that the city is trying to make budget cuts and save money and think switching retirees to this plan will do so. The retirees are worried this is going to be a lot out of pocket on a fixed income and they will lose health coverage and doctors.

Good or bad for who?

It's good for a short sighted City government that is desperately cutting corners to save a few bucks. This would save about $500 million, about 2/3 of the OT budget for NYPD last year.

It's bad for retirees on a fixed income (who were paid far less than their private sector counterparts) who were promised their health plan as trade off of working for the city and now are being forced to take on a private health plan (calling itself Medicare) that will reduce the amount of healthcare they receive and thin the selection of doctors.

At the end of the day, most of us will be retirees some day and will regret what we do now to cut those benefits.

The goons at the top always yell about how this is a great opportunity to do more with less. When it's perfectly obvious that you always get less with less.

Oh, you mean losing a massive percentage of staff due to low pay and lack of WFH/flexible schedule options, refusing to replace half the staff who left, delaying the hiring process for months, underpaying current staff with no cost of living increases in 3+ years and constantly talking shit about them in public while praising private business owners instead hasn't increased efficiency?? I'm shocked!

For those unaware, Adams has been actively promoting the idea that these offices will become more efficient because so many workers have left, because they'll just have to find a way to get it done. He's a moron.