But it's not really a raise if you get a 4% salary increase but have to pay 25% of your family's health care cost, is it?
In his high-stakes contract talks with city unions, Mayor de Blasio is
pressing for healthcare savings in exchange for pay raises, the mayor’s
budget director told the City Council on Wednesday.
“We’re going to treat the workforce with the respect that they have not
been treated with, but at the same time protect the taxpayers and do
something that’s affordable,” Dean Fuleihan said at the first hearing on
de Blasio’s proposed $74 billion budget.
“There have to be offsetting savings. And (de Blasio) specifically mentioned and has repeatedly mentioned health savings.”
...
Fuleihan repeatedly stressed that saving money on the skyrocketing cost
of health benefits would have to be part of any deal with the unions.
Health insurance for workers and retirees costs the city about $6
billion a year - and is projected to reach almost $7 billion by 2016 and
nearly $8 billion by 2018.
“We need to find ways to control costs while providing high quality
health care to our employees,” Fuleihan said. He refused to discuss
specifics.
There are concession and then there are CONCESSIONS when it comes to these kinds of contract negotiations.
To my mind, this is not an acceptable CONCESSION:
The Citizens Budget Commission has estimated that the city could save
$1.8 billion a year by requiring single employees to pay 10% of their
insurance premiums, employees with families to pay 25% of their
premiums, and early retirees to pay 50% of their premiums.
The DN says the unions are looking for other ways to work things out:
“We’re looking to sit down and see if we can come up with some ideas
that can save everybody money,” said Harry Nespoli of the Municipal
Labor Committee.
But he said he would resist making workers pay more for premiums, noting they already are responsible for co-pays.
“That’s going to be a problem. ... We want to make sure that whatever changes, the quality of the health care stays the same.”
We'll see how this goes.
All I know is, it's not really much of a raise when you get $4,000 extra a year in salary, but $3,000 of that goes toward paying health care premiums.
I'd rather take less of a raise , and keep what,we have in place.
ReplyDeleteThis is scary, since Unity caucus rarely sees a concession it won't accept in the name of a "raise."
ReplyDeleteRemember when the school day was lengthened in exchange for some more money, and they marketed that as a "raise."
It seems likely that the scenario that many predicted concerning De Blasio - less open contempt for teachers while little else changes and concessions proceed uopposed - is coming to pass.
Hopefullly retirees take a hit on the benefits along with active staff? That way these Floridians will become a bit disgruntled with uft leadership and not rubberstamp whatever the union says and does?
ReplyDeleteI bet Mulgrew folds and screws us AGAIN!
ReplyDelete