Union leaders concerned about dispute over healthcare savings | Tomorrow's headlines tonight

Harper Freeman, she is the editor from the Chief Leader Newspapers, and she's working on a story that has to do with the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement with one of the largest unions in the city of New York, DC-37. Harper, can you hear me okay? Thanks for joining me. Yeah, I can hear you. Great. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we had so much breaking news tonight, but we want to get to our new segment because we're so excited about it. And I'm so excited to talk to you. First of all, Harper, how long have you been working as a journalist here in New York City? For about four years now. Yeah, just over four years I've been here in the city. Oh, great, great. So for someone that's only been here four years, this is a prickly issue you chose to cover or report on. This is a big union, and there's a lot of money at stake here. Talk to us about what issues. First of all, how did you uncover that the contract was coming up and there were some major, major issues? Yeah, certainly. While at the chief, we're always covering public sector unions. That's kind of our big thing. We're always focused on DC 37 in particular, which is the union that represents 90,000 of the city's civil servants, which is about a third of all the city workers in New York. Thank So I've been anticipating this contract expiring for quite some time. And, you know, I just started making some calls to sources I have, seeing what the top you issues are, whether that's sources in rank and file or in the top of community leadership. very And certainly there's a lot going into this, whether it's healthcare raises, almost every issue is kind of touched by this contract. much. So we're in a, you know, we just had an election in the midterms, right? And so affordability, one of the main issues there. And I know the unions are trying to, they're concerned about a shortfall. Talk to me about what it, before you do that, tell people at home who don't know what DC 37 means. You said municipal workers, but what kinds of jobs do they do? Well, it's very wide-ranging. D.C. 37 is District Council 37, which refers to it's the 37th district council of AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which is a mouthful, but it's one of the largest state public sector worker unions. New York City is one of its biggest district councils. I think it's actually its biggest district council. Um, it's EMS workers. It is custodians. It is, um, accountants, city planners. It's really quite a wide range of titles of, um, workers in every single department, every single mail agency in New York. Um, and there's one economic agreement that covers the vast majority of those workers, um, and also sets the wage standard importantly for every other municipal union So whatever raise these workers get. Teachers are going to end up with a similar one, and police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers will get a raise a little bit bigger than that, but it'll be based on this initial agreement. Wow. You know, I don't think most people know that. That's really interesting. That's a lot of power with DC 37. So talk to me about what is on their plate. What are they most concerned about? Because I read into it's health care. Obviously, we're all concerned about that. But what are the issues? Yeah, healthcare costs are growing, have gone up, are going to continue to go up. And the city's cost burden will only continue to go up. You know, I was digging deep into some minutes from union delegates meetings, and the executive director of DC 37, Henry Garrido, said that the city pays about $48,000 per city employee for their health care. And a number of things have happened where the city's cost burden has increased, not Not just because the price of health care is going up, but... A plan to switch the city's retirees to a Medicare Advantage plan was... Pulled out almost at the last minute by the former mayor, Mayor Eric Adams, and that lost the city about $600 million in projected savings. There's also this stabilization fund that the city and unions collaborate on, and this stabilization fund previously had hundreds of millions of dollars in it and was used to pay for a prescription drug program called PICA. And this was for expensive prescription drugs, cancer drugs, really crucially important life-saving medication that was just very expensive. And ever since that health fund went insolvent, or essentially was, there's no more money in this fund. And ever since that fund had no more money in it, the city has been covering that cost entirely by itself. That's about $600 million a year. So before bargaining can even begin between individual unions. Yeah. The kind of umbrella organization of municipal unions at NYC has been meeting directly with Mayor Eric Adams and his kind of top officials to hammer out a new health care plan, and not an entirely new plan for members, but just cost-saving measures so the city can essentially cross its T's and dot its I's on the budget and save some money on these jumping health care costs. So this is really interesting because Mayor Adams, a democratic socialist, really ran on trying to, you know, help more than any other administration before him ran on, you know, free food, free buses, lots of things. And if he has to make cuts to the health care plan for the municipal workers and then by extension the teachers union and the police and the rest of it, he could really take a hit. Am I right? Absolutely. And for that reason, I would say that's probably not likely. But at the same time, municipal workers in New York City get premium free health care. And they're one of few groups of employees across the entire country whose health care plans gotten through work have no premiums. And that's an incredible benefit that Henry Garrido of DC37 and other union leaders have said repeatedly that is a red line for them. And they're not willing to give up. Wow, that sounds like the United Auto Workers of America in the middle of the country. That's a pretty powerful union. And remind people of the math. It also means that taxpayers here in New York City are footing the bill for that. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, as you mentioned, this is a real test of Mayor Adams' labor bona fides. Henry Garrido, who again runs D.C. 37, is in particular an incredibly close ally of Mayor Adams. District Council 37 was one of the only unions to endorse him in the mayoral primary. They endorsed him again in the general election. So he is a very close ally with Garrido and they've been meeting one on one, which I reported that they've been meeting one on one To discuss these issues, as well as discuss issues like. How artificial intelligence might affect workers and also telework, you know, remote working schedules, that sort of thing. But, I mean, certainly it's a very important contract. And I think for the mayor, he's balancing, you know, keeping up his. Image as a pro-union, pro-labor mayor and helping these workers and obviously balancing the books, because every dollar that goes to these workers is going to reverberate tenfold down the road. And there's only a certain amount that the city has budgeted to pay for municipal labor agreements and doing something like. You know, a 5%, 6% raise per year, raising workers to, you know, $30, a $30 minimum wage, which is what some of these rank and file activists in this union have spoken about is securing a $30 minimum wage. Well, that's going to cost taxpayers a lot of money. And it's never easy balancing the budget here. Yeah, never is. So where do things stand now? Because these seem like some thorny issues. Yeah, I mean, nothing will move until health care is figured out. That's kind of what I've been told by everyone on all sides. And there's really no saying when that'll happen. You know, these unions are very comfortable not settling their contract agreements until months or even years after their last contract expires, which, you know, for. Workers is tough because it means they won't be getting a raise until their next contract comes up. But, for example, the police union, the Police Benevolent Association, their last contract took seven years to settle. Thank And it was arbitration and all these disputes. So I think these unions are hoping they can get this health care issue settled. And with that out of the way, you it'll free up some money for raises, right? Because if the city's obligations to healthcare are lowered, very maybe, hey, Mom Donnie will be more willing to get... 4%, 4.5%, 5% raises for these workers, which is ultimately what these union leaders want much. is even the biggest raise possible, the most benefits possible. But it doesn't sound like they're anywhere close, because if they have the gold standard of health care and they don't have to pay co-pays and all the rest of it like all of us do, that's a pretty good plan. What's the incentive to stop negotiating? They could negotiate indefinitely. Yeah, well, I think the incentive is that their members will get frustrated about not having a raise. Right. Because if this contract isn't settled, their members won't get a raise. A raise that will then go toward the new health costs for them, right? Yeah, and again, the unions have said that they have met their obligations to reduce the city's health costs. That's actually what they're arguing, is that the umbrella organization of unions feels that they have met their legal obligation under previous agreements. to lower health costs. But regardless of that, there's negotiations ongoing. But yes, I would agree with you. It doesn't feel like it's kind of anywhere close to being solved. That's all right. We're used to that here in New York City. So what made you want to go into this type of reporting? Because this is tricky stuff. There's some powerful people you're dealing with here. What appeals to you? Absolutely. Well, I mean, I'm born and raised in New York City. I've kind of always been interested in workers and working people, and I really feel there's no better profession than telling stories of working people. And sometimes to do that, you have to get into the weeds of healthcare agreements from a decade ago and just kind of read a bunch of documents from the city and municipal unions over the last 10 years to kind of craft stories like this. Show workers kind of what's really happening behind the scenes with their labor leaders. I'm picturing you in the in the bowels of City Hall pulling out old file cabinets that are covered in dust. How do you do this? How do you get access? Is it all online? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely. You know, that's a really nice picture. It's definitely more so on my computer, more so online. A lot of emails, a lot of phone calls. I mean, I've been doing this for four years now. I've built up a lot of sources in these unions, in the Municipal Labor Committee, which is this umbrella organization, obviously at City Hall. So I should say these are all threads that we've been tracking, this Medicare Advantage issue, this health care savings issue, the health fund I mentioned earlier. This is stories that me and my colleagues, my colleagues and I have been covering for And really, anybody who works for the city or who's a teacher or a police officer, everybody needs to be following these talks pretty closely since they set the standard. Absolutely. It's called pattern bargaining is the way it works. And essentially, you know, that first union, which is basically always district council 37 now, that first raise determines the raise for everyone else. So it's not just the 90,000 members here. It's really 300,000 members who are working on it. And we've seen some pushback to that model. You know, paraprofessionals who are teacher's aides, they recently got a $10,000 bonus from the city council, and now Mamdani has sued to block that. But those bonuses were... Very much pushed by the United Federation of Teachers, those paraprofessional unions. And that was done, obviously, outside of bargaining, right? That was a bonus that was achieved through legislative means, which, you know, is only one of the ways we've seen municipal unions try to get around the traditional pattern bargaining. And there's no law about this. There's no law that says unions have to follow a pattern. It's just kind of the tradition of labor peace and labor strategy that these unions adhere to with the city. This must keep you up at night. I got to tell you, this is a lot. Has anybody ever threatened you? Have they called your phone? Any of these union leaders not too happy with your reporting? No, no threats. You know, the most closest I got was I've done stories on private hauling companies and some of the unions that private hauling companies are. I've run by former figures who are connected to organized crime. Sanitary. Sanitation worker type. That's some of the stuff that keeps me up at night, definitely. But nothing, I mean, crossing my fingers, nothing's really happened to me yet. So I hope it stays that way. Oh, Harper, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Harper Freeman, tell people where they can find you and what your social media handles are. And give us a tease as to what you're working on next. Absolutely. So we're at thechiefleader.com. We're almost 130 years old. We're celebrating our 130th birthday next year. My socials are all at harpfree, which is H-A-R-P-F-R-E-E. Twitter, Instagram, everywhere else. I'm working on a couple different things. I'm working on a story about some worker exploitation at health and hospitals. I'm continuing to track The ongoing negotiations between the MTA and the transit union, which has been quite an interesting story for me to track. There's always a lot of stuff going on and there's a lot of bargaining happening right now. So I'm very excited about it. I am too. I'm excited to read your work.