Does Unity See Good in Pensions Being Halved?

The silence from Unity has been deafening. We have 183 people about to have their relatively small fixed incomes cut in half. I’ve not heard an official word from UFT about it. However, Lynn Winderbaum, who represents Unity in some capacity in Florida, appears to have posted a quote (below) stating that “only 183 members” were affected and it was therefore “good news.”

I don’t know who Winderbaum was quoting. It appears to place Unity in the most favorable possible light, though. Is this the new Unity talking point? Was it something she shared in the newsletter she mentions? Not being a mind reader, I couldn’t say. Regardless, it’s a remarkable suggestion and someone made it. I’ve heard firsthand about the “information and assistance” these paras are receiving. Color me unimpressed.

I read stuff like this, and things other than good news cross my mind. For example, isn’t it an extraordinary coincidence that this particular disaster came to light just after another trustee election? I mean, if people knew that Tom Brown was chair of TRS, and presided over some of our lowest paid members losing half their pensions, would that have garnered him fewer votes?

Yet there it is, in black and white—183 paraprofessionals losing half their income is “good news.” I’m sure if you happened to be one of them, you’d have a hard time getting your mind around it. I’m not one of them, and I have a hard time getting my mind around it.

Maybe I’m a Gloomy Gus or something. I’m always looking at the negative. Let’s try to fathom how one might rationalize this being a “good thing.” 183 paraprofessionals being screwed means the one who could’ve been 184 somehow got off the hook. In fact, you could take a global view. If 183 paraprofessionals are losing half their pension, then well over 8.29 billion people are not losing half their pension. Maybe we should have a party.

So hey, pull up a chair. Pour yourself a glass of Chivas Regal. Reflect on all the people who are not losing half their pensions. That’s a lot of people, right?

Perhaps it behooves us to look at the things Unity does and try to see the good side. For example, when they tried to charge us an extra 200 dollars a month, each, to retain the health care we’d had free, forever, we complained. But look at the good side. You may have used that 200 dollars to buy heroin. You could’ve become addicted, and ended up living in a tree. And, perhaps, a tree in an undesirable neighborhood. Is that what you want?

And hey, Unity fought for the right for us to pay that 200 bucks. They sent several retired Unity Vice Presidents to the City Council. Evidently, the Medicare Advantage those of us who couldn’t pay would be saddled with was not good enough for them. They needed real Medicare. They even brought a cancer patient to say it was necessary.

Where’s the good side in that? Well, evidently Unity thinks those of us who can’t afford the extra expense simply won’t get sick. I mean, it would be downright cynical to suggest highly-compensated Unity thought we should all just drop dead and take what they gave us while they bought the good stuff for themselves.

When Unity doubled the cost of SHIP, a lot of us complained. As Unity’s Leo Casey put it, we were “kvetching.” (That’s when you complain for no good reason.) But look at the bright side. They could have tripled the cost. They could have quintupled it. (At that point ascending verbs fail me, but you see what I mean.) It could have been much worse.

And hey, when Unity, which constantly boasts we don’t pay premiums, raised my pharmacy premium by a factor of 50% over only two years, I was a little bit upset. But hey, paying an extra $120 a month meant I was putting out $1440 extra a year. If I had not paid that money, I may have taken it to a card game run by Tony Soprano. Perhaps I’d have borrowed so much money from him that I’d lose everything.

When Unity saddled me with co-pays for doctor visits, that too cut into my fixed income. And yet, every time I handed some doctor 15 bucks, I didn’t buy a pack of cigarettes. So you see, Michael Mulgrew is saving us all from lung cancer. What a thoughtful union boss he is.

The Unity Caucus are our good friends. Think of all the times you walked down the stairs and they didn’t push you. Think of all the times you strolled by a lake and they didn’t toss you in.

So thanks, Unity, for keeping me from doing all those risky things. Also, thanks for never inviting me to join your patronage cult. If you had, I’d perhaps have to spend my time rationalizing why all you do, no matter what, is somehow good. I’d have to nod my head and agree when Michael Mulgrew said his Very Smart People negotiated this or that. I’d have to vote yes on health care agreements, the nature of which I was not allowed to see.

And then, the hard part—I’d have to look at myself in the mirror.

It’s shocking that anyone could see the suffering of our union brothers and sisters as a “good thing.” Whoever wrote that has not the remotest notion of what union is. We depend on union to guide and support us. This is not what we were promised. It is most certainly not a “good thing.” In fact, it’s terrible news, unacceptable news, a call to action. Of course, I’m not part of Unity. They “do the work.”

The rest of us, of course, pay for the work they do. Again, I don’t know who said the things you see above. I do know, though, that it is among the most anti-union sentiments I’ve ever seen.

There’s a famous labor slogan—An injury to one is an injury to all. To characterize an egregious injury to 183 union members as good news is, frankly, despicable.

I’d hope Unity would deem that quote as odious as I do. This notwithstanding, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

Thanks to RP.

Note—Lynn Winderbaum contacted me on Facebook, and the quote comes from RTC Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer. I will have more on this in my next post.

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