Retired Teachers Chapter News
Good news: We are not alone
Nov 1, 2007 2:02 PM
UFT President Randi Weingarten gives RTCers plenty of good news at the October general membership meeting at UFT headquarters.
Our retirees are remarkable people. So we are very happy to welcome to our ranks of remarkable people our 2,423 new retirees.
Let me remind new retirees that you are still active players in the UFT and our union continues its efforts to protect and expand our benefits to ensure that we enjoy a secure and dignified retirement.
As retirees we have been well taken care of by the UFT through our pension and benefits package. What you may not know is that many retirees across the country, even some teacher union retirees, are left on their own to protect their pensions and benefits once they retire.
We are not alone. At this year’s June luncheon, UFT President Randi Weingarten told us the good news that the combined clout of the UFT and NYSUT would begin to work in Albany to improve the permanent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that helps protect our pensions from the erosion of inflation.
And the president brought us more good news at our latest RTC meeting here at union headquarters when she told us that classroom coverages are pensionable retroactive to 1993. Retirees who retired after 1993 will have their pensions recalculated if they did coverages at the end of their careers. They will also be getting six years of retroactive money from 2001 forward.
The other big news on the pension front is that the UFT has finally won 55/25 retirement for inservice members on Tiers II, III and IV.
Beyond these improvements to pensions, the union is also supporting our efforts to stop the privatization of Medicare by putting an end to the billion-dollar subsidies now paid to insurance companies for their Medicare Advantage Plans — in reality insurance company advantage plans. These subsidies are made at great cost to the government and to the solvency of Medicare and to those of us in traditional Medicare who face premium increases to pay for the added cost of $1,000 per beneficiary in the Advantage plans.
RTC member Hazel Fershleiser asks a question.
As retirees, we not only get active support from our union but we also give by backing the union’s efforts to improve this city’s schools and the economic and professional standing of our teachers. We turn out for rallies, phone banks, leafletting campaigns and wherever else we’re needed.
The president thanked us for the faxes, phone calls and e-mails retirees sent telling our congressional legislators to vote no to mandating individual performance pay for teachers as part of the reauthorization of NCLB.
Chapter Leader Tom Pappas addresses the group.
We actively participate in the life of the UFT through our retirees who sit on the UFT Executive Board, vote in leadership elections and represent us at monthly Delegate Assembly meetings and at state and national conventions. An RTC resolution on Medicare Part D calling for closing the donut hole and negotiating drug prices was overwhelmingly passed on our behalf at a Delegate Assembly last year so it is now union policy.
I was touched by veteran retirees at the June luncheon who acknowledged just how much the union has meant to them and done for them. Donesa Jackson, now retiree coordinator of services for the Orlando Section in Florida, said, “How can I say thank you to an organization that has done so much?”
Edwin Skolnick appreciated the union as “a warm and loving home for my entire professional life.” Ruth Rubinstein vowed, “Every time you ask me I will answer the call for volunteers,” and Grace Metivier said, “The UFT has given us a chance to begin life anew and to live it well.”
President Weingarten never misses a luncheon and the chance to meet with retirees to thank them for their contribution to the city’s children and to the union.
And she never misses a chance to remind us that the best way to get things done “is through politics.”
That means that the 2008 election campaign is our next big target. We must enlist everyone’s help to sweep the neo-conservatives out of the Capitol and regain control of the White House and Congress. We need to have real margins of safety in the Congress so that we can begin to get legislation passed that will, among other things, provide health insurance for uninsured children and for all Americans and protect Medicare from sliding any more deeply into privatization.
We will be calling on all our retirees, new and not so new, to help us in the upcoming political battles. So please stay involved and be prepared to take part in the take back of our government.
We’ll let you know how you can help as the campaign evolves.
The smiles were plenty...
... and the laughter hearty during President Weingarten's speech to the RTCers.
