Retirees United to Preserve Medicare Access and Got Shut Down by Their International
Retiree Leaders Who Won’t Be Silenced
Editor’s note: A statement from Ann Widger appears on the DC37 Retirees Association website. The veracity of these statements, including revocation of IRS exempt status, have not yet been verified:
“On February 22, AFSCME President Lee Saunders placed the Retirees Association of DC 37 under emergency administratorship. This means that the national union has assumed responsibility for the day-to-day affairs of the Association. To carry out these responsibilities, he has appointed me, Ann Widger, Director of AFSCME Retirees, to serve as the Association’s administrator and Terri Brady, Retirees Field Coordinator, to serve as deputy administrator.
“The decision to place an AFSCME affiliate under administratorship is never made lightly, and only when absolutely necessary to protect the interests of you, the membership. In this case, the International Union recently became aware that the DC 37 Retirees Association was not following AFSCME’s Financial Standards Code or Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements, which jeopardized the Retirees Association’s funds and assets.
“Unfortunately, the IRS has revoked the Association’s tax-exempt status for failure to file its annual tax return for the past six years. Again, this puts the Retirees Association’s funds and assets at risk. The Retirees Association also has not conducted an outside audit since at least 2017. These are serious failings. In pursuing these matters with the Association, it became clear that there was no significant effort or progress being made to correct them. While there is no evidence of any individual financial wrongdoing, these matters cannot go unaddressed…”
From Marianne Pizzitola:
Standing in solidarity with the Board of DC37 retirees, we support them by sending their official statement out.
NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
Marianne Pizzitola
President
NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
Manhattan – On February 22, AFSCME President Lee Saunders placed the DC37 Retirees’ Association under emergency administratorship. Eight AFSCME staffers barged into our office, seized books and records, and changed the locks to our office.
This ended our ability to meet our members’ needs. Our staff on the job that day were shaken up by the way AFSCME staffers treated them, and are still suffering mental distress. They even attempted to take away their personal phones. Contrast that with the efforts of our dedicated staff that kept our office open during the Covid pandemic to meet our members’ needs.
AFSCME’s statement says that all this was done because we failed to submit IRS 990 forms, and our books had not been audited.
AFSCME does not say there was any theft or wrongdoing. We gave our accountant the needed information to complete these documents. We never received notification from the IRS that there were any problems. We are not the only affiliate to have such problems. Usually help would be given to resolve the issue. When we learned there was a problem we started corrective action at once.
Ann Widger, who was named administrator of our association, said in her statement to our members, “I realize that some will say this is about the current debate around retiree health care for New York City Retirees. Make no mistake: it is not.”
Our reply to Ann is that the healthcare issue is exactly what this takeover is about. What you call a “debate” is a matter of life and death for an older population whose health conditions will be compromised by switching from traditional Medicare to a Medicare (dis)advantage system known to put profits ahead of patients’ health needs.
One month prior to the AFSCME action, our board voted to resume contributions to help pay for the legal expenses of cases filed by the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees. Those lawsuits have stopped the retiree healthcare changes in their tracks.
Last June, Widger sent us a threatening memo warning us not to continue our contributions. After a serious discussion, we resumed our contributions. We support the fight against the deal agreed to by the Municipal Labor Committee (including our local AFSCME District Council 37) and the city. That is the real “crime” we are being punished for.
We would have hoped that our national union would stand with us in this fight. They say they are in favor of traditional Medicare. They have passed resolutions saying so at conventions over the years.
Instead, they are punishing us for our fight to maintain it. Many of us have spent over fifty years as members of AFSCME fighting for the benefits we all need. Our retiree constitution says that we exist to protect and expand the rights and benefits of New York City retirees. We refuse to have our health benefits diminished by the privatized for-profit Medicare (dis)Advantage Plan!
Banner Image: Union labor. Image Credit – John Salvino
Marianne Pizzitola NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
On August 13th, 2021, a group of retirees from many different city agencies got together to form an organization to fight the impending changes to our healthcare. Two and half hours later, five people volunteered to form the Board and one became an advisor to the Board. In the next few weeks, we grew to five officers, four Trustees, five Advisors, started our Facebook group, filed for NYS incorporation, opened our PayPal fundraising account and were approved by the State to conduct business. Six weeks later we met our initial fundraising goal to pay the attorney's retainer and had filed our article 78 petition. Our Facebook page has over 18,000 members and we have an email list of almost 10,000 and both continue to grow. This is a major accomplishment! But we need to grow larger. We need to reach 250,000 retirees!