Healthcare Updates: HELP US HIT OVER 10K PETITION SIGNATURES BEFORE JUNE 9TH! + RALLIES FOR OUR HEALTHCARE
Latest news on Healthcare Referendum Petition, The Big 5 Contract Demands and Rallies for our Healthcare
WE MUST REACH 10K BY JUNE 9TH!
As we quickly approach the 9K signature mark for the UFT Healthcare Referendum petition , we need your help more than ever!
Help us reach 10K and let's prove we can do it to the naysayers that say we won't hit the 10% of UFT members needed to trigger a referendum vote to preserve our healthcare from significant changes, and to ensure all proposed changes are fully disclosed to every union member.
We need you to spread the word, today. Share the petition to your UFT friends and family, schools, colleagues, former colleagues -- to all who will listen.
You can do so by having them sign electronically at: hcpetition.educators.nyc
Or download and print the PDF version and circulate it among UFT members: hcreferendum.educators.nyc
We need all chapter leaders, delegates or active members who are circulating petitions at their schools to submit these to us by June 9th. (We've extended our first initial deadline!)
You can also help this cause by making a donation for our tech, administrative and printing costs.
ACTIVE RANK & FILE MEMBERS MAKE PREMIUM-FREE HEALTHCARE A CONTRACT DEMAND
United For Change (UFC), a coalition of united UFT teachers, paraprofessionals, related service providers, retirees, and UFT represented support staff, along with major caucuses and groups, who want to see a positive and meaningful change at the top of our union, in our contract, policy, and decision making, and within our school communities, last week released its BIG 5 CONTRACT DEMANDS for the upcoming UFT contract.
One contract demand they’ve included is that we will accept nothing less than our existing QUALITY and PREMIUM-FREE healthcare and that all significant changes must be brought to all members with the terms and conditions fully disclosed to all of us. Anything less means -- we will vote "NO'!
More importantly, active in-service UFT members are becoming more aware of the healthcare givebacks of the last couple of contracts, in 2014 & 2018, including the failure of UFT leadership to fully disclose its ill-conceived brokered deal of 600 million dollars a year in "cost savings" for the City.
Many are saying we must not, and will not, let this happen again in our next contract or beyond.
Our rank and file union family is now making bold demands by drawing clear lines in the sand as to what we will, and will not accept, in the next UFT contract from the City and union leadership. Even as so much of the negotiating is happening behind close doors while OUR healthcare and raises are discussed clandestinely and exclusively only among a select few on the negotiating committee.
With a tentative contract agreement being imminent, thousands are pledging to stand together with retirees to ensure protections for our existing healthcare benefits by signing the healthcare petition referendum and committing to stand by the Big 5 Demands.
If the next tentative contract agreement is voted down, our union leadership and the City will simply have to go back to the table and get it right.
Let's be clear: Healthcare is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining and we have the right to negotiate our healthcare and a right to vote on it, with or without the MLC. [See our FAQ here]
This is a big moment in this fight for all of us. We distributed leaflets about the Big 5 Demands at contract rallies this week as part of this mutual struggle. We need to press harder than ever for one another.
Help spread the word about our healthcare referendum petition whose language is now part of the Big 5 Contract Demands. Tell others about these contract demands, too!
Rallying For Healthcare: Let’s Hit the Streets!
NYC Retirees to Adams: ‘We Shall Not Be Screwed By You!!’
Dozens of retired city workers, some with canes, a few with walkers, and some wearing prop “screws” going through their heads, made their way to the Brooklyn Bridge this past week for a face-off with New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
NYC RETIREES ORG: HEALTHCARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT - MAY 31, CITY HALL AT 11 AM
The NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees is hosting a rally this Wednesday, May 31, at 11 AM. They will meet near City Hall Park, by Park Pl. (the end of the park), across from the Woolworth building.
Tell City Council to stop holding pending legislation to protect retirees' current Medicare hostage.
Tell them: Medicare Advantage is inferior to traditional Medicare.
Wear blue! Active workers and unions welcome to join!!
And pencil in June 8th!! They are planning to come back!!
MORE UFT - RALLY FOR NYHA AT JUNE DELEGATE ASSEMBLY - JUNE 7, 52 BROADWAY AT 4 PM
Join the Movement of Rank and FIle Educators' rally to pressure UFT leadership to honor the Delegate Assembly's 2015 + 2017 votes to publicly support the New York Health Act.
Rank and File educators will be rallying outside the UFT headquarters on June 7th at 4pm with a line up of amazing speakers and community organizations in support.
Wear red in solidarity!