We Come Together to Celebrate Our New Bill

Our bill is back, thanks to the folks you see up there. On the left, you see Marianne Pizzitola, our very own working class hero. Marianne never gives up. Despite the best efforts of Michael Mulgrew and his patronage cult, Marianne is the reason those of us who are old enough still have Medicare. Next to her is Councilman Christopher Marte, who’s consistently been our friend.

Marte told us that the bill was introduced via more conventional means this time. He said some Council members, because of how 1096 was introduced, offered the excuse they never got to read it. This year, they will no longer be able to do that. It will be part of the official record or something. That is likely why it’s taken so long to introduce, but I’m very glad it’s here.

To Marte’s right is Staten Island Councilman Frank Morano, who’s joined us in our quest to retain benefits we’d been promised all our careers. Next to him, sporting a cool Hawaiian Shirt, is Fix Retiree Benefits member Michael Lynch. And to his right you see Marie Para, a founding member of Fix Para Pay, the group that forced Unity to act like it “respects” paras.

I’m just behind Councilman Marte, I think. However, my x-ray vision doesn’t work on photographs. (Isn’t that annoying?)

I was a little stressed out coming out today. Once again my wife and kid have run off to Canada and left me to take care of my forever puppy Toby. I can’t bear to leave him with strangers. So I woke up around 5 AM, got ready to go, and fed and walked Toby in order to make it to the Big Turtle by 9 AM.

It was a pain in the neck, but it was worth it. Toby deserves it. Here he is, just before wife and kid left, lending them his favorite toy to take on their journey. After all, what’s life without toys?

Anyway, what with being retired and all, I’m not keen on this waking up ridiculously early stuff. Why retire if you have to get up even earlier than you did when you were working? Still, this was an important event. I’m happy to report when I got home my buddy Toby was perfectly fine. (You think your kids can’t get by without you, but sooner or later you learn they can.)

While Toby faithfully guarded our little home, I was at City Hall. There was a pretty big crowd there, and a few of us from Fix Retiree Benefits got a photo together.

That’s Evie Silberman, Gail Lindenberg, Laura Genovese, Alan Stein, some guy with a crooked smile and a weird hat, Mimi McDermott, and the amazing Norm Scott. We were more than happy to show up and support this bill.

Sometimes people ask me why we created Fix Retiree Benefits. We did it because we are determined to follow up on the promises made by Retiree Advocate (RA) when they ran two years ago. I say “they” because right after the election, after I wrote about them endlessly, after I ran and won the position of Vice Chair, I learned I was not part of RA.

Being part of RA doesn’t much matter to me. What matters to me is that we promised to be a vibrant opposition. We promised to work to preserve our health care. When Retiree Advocate focused on their own personal politics rather than what we ran and won on, many of us were put off by it. That’s why last year, they lost almost every vote they got in the winning election.

We voted for opposition, a force to counter Unity. What we got was something else entirely. Here’s a photo of the entire Retiree Advocate contingent at today’s event:

That’s right. I saw not one single member of Retiree Advocate at the rally. This is not what we voted for. We voted to mobilize our chapter and battle for our rights. And though I’ve been reaching out to them for well over a year now, RA has thus far declined to work with us. They delay, delay, and delay more.

Sometimes they say it’s because I’m so mean. They don’t like it when I report about folks on the elite committee that controls everything they do. For example, if I write that Michael Shulman announced to the RTC Executive Board that health care was no longer the issue (it was creeping fascism, he said), they won’t like it. They’ll call it a “personal attack.”

When I wrote that Jonathan Halabi announced to an RA recruitment meeting that he did not support 1096 (now 1008), I’m certain he didn’t like it. In fact, at an RTC meeting he let me know he was angry with me. If I write, today, that another one of their Big Shots posted something on Facebook about the rally but couldn’t be bothered showing up herself, that will make them mad too. It’s true nonetheless.

Are those personal attacks? I’d argue they are not. I’m simply reporting on what they said and did. While I’m doing that, I can also report that they just missed yet another of their ever-shifting deadlines to get back to us on whether or not they will deign to work with us.

Sometimes they say, gee, we’d love to work with you, but you say all those bad things. And for my part, it’s true. I say them. However, I’m not part of organizing a new slate simply because I have nothing better to occupy my time. These things I say are precisely why a new slate is needed.

As for personal attacks, I’ll give you an example. After one of our meetings with RA, one of its members asked me why I lie. I told her to tell me where I lied and I’d be happy to correct it. She then said she couldn’t recall what the lie was. You’d best believe if I wanted to accuse someone of lying, I’d either (a.) bring receipts or (b.) keep my mouth shut.

I don’t require RA members to like me. They may say whatever they wish about me. I don’t have to like them either.

We’re taking a stand against union bosses who openly stereotype us, who take us for fools, and repeatedly sell us out in exchange for crappy contracts that not only benefit us not at all, but also ought to require no givebacks whatsoever.

We need real activists to stand up to the Unity machine. We are real activists, and we are ready. RA can work with us or not, but we will stand tall. We will follow up on the promise RA made two years ago. We will work hand in hand with the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, and we will not be bamboozled by Michael Mulgrew, UFT Unity, or its Holy Patronage Mill.

And we want you to join our movement. Please do.