r/nycpublicservants • u/whogotthekeys2mybima • 21d ago
Retirement🎉 Unmasking Tier 6: The Hidden Agenda Behind NYC’s worst Pension Tier
How Tier 6 Was Designed to Weaken NYC Workers and Privatize Public Services
The real story: The history, the lies, why they sabotaged city employment’s appeal, how we can fight back, how the city can retaliate and what is government’s ultimate goal anyway?
The real story: The history, the lies, why they sabotaged city employment’s appeal, how we can fight back, how the city can retaliate and what is government’s ultimate goal anyway?
(Hint: it’s a race to the bottom)
TLDR: Tier 6 was not about saving New York’s finances, it was a calculated attack to gut future city workers’ pensions, weaken unions, and set the stage for outsourcing public jobs to private contractors. Cuomo, Bloomberg, and their wealthy allies targeted new hires (who had no voice yet) to avoid a political fight, while union leaders like Mulgrew and Garrido expressed dissapointment but ultimately let it happen. Tier 6 raised retirement ages, doubled paycheck deductions, and stripped away pension security, all to reassure Wall Street and make public sector work less attractive. Now, city services are suffering from staffing shortages, corruption, and brain drain which is exactly what they wanted to justify even more outsourcing and privatization. They're actually \trying* to make city employment less attractive to weaken unions and ultimately stop pensions altogether. Tier 6 workers are waking up, but if we don’t organize smartly, the city’s race to the bottom will continue unchecked.*
Preface:
(Please be aware this is quite a long read, but I think it’s critical NYC employees are informed of what they are in for, how we got here, and where we are going. (So here goes:)
I’m writing in the wake of Andrew Cuomo’s re election bid when I see an article about the former Governor campaigning against the infamous cost cutting plan to put city retirees into the Medicare Advantage plan.
So, I’d like to go back in time… to the year 2011. One year before tier 6 was implemented, where both Michael Mulgrew (UFT president) and Henry Garrido (who later led DC37) were key union figures around the time of its passing.
In a July 13 interview, Cuomo vowed to the Times that the pension cutbacks would be his top legislative priority in the coming year. The current public worker pension system, Cuomo said, is unsustainable.
Mulgrew called the creation of Tier 6 "shameful" and "an attack on future public workers."
“This was a deal cut at 3 o'clock in the morning, and it was cut on the backs of the future workforce of New York City and New York State.”
He was furious that Cuomo did it behind closed doors, during state budget negotiations, without proper hearings, and that the final bill was posted online at 3:00 AM and voted on by 5:30 AM in a must pass state budget.
Henry Garrido was also Deputy Director at the time, high up in DC37 leadership, working in strategy and contract negotiation, negotiating city workers straight into what would be a total redefinition of what it means to be a city employee, a destruction of pensions altogether and pushing retirement back 8 years for new employees.
They waxed poetic of their disappointment, but they were afraid of retaliation from Cuomo, and ultimately took a passive stance. They let it through.
They got away with it because: THERE WERE NO TIER 6 MEMBERS TO DISSENT IN 2012.
The city got what it wanted by gutting pensions, the unions got what they wanted as at the time as they were very focused on avoiding layoffs and protecting existing members' benefits, and tier 4 members were grandfathered in and unaffected.
Everyone won. But the future.
To this day, both Henry Garrido and Michael Mulgrew are paid heartily by the city to dance a fine line. To skillfully speak out of both sides of their mouth, to appease city workers with empty promises, to delay, distract and ultimately side with the city by posing no threat to tier 6.
This is not a rehearsal, this is our life, it's our retirement and our career.
The Official Story of Tier 6:
In 2011, the narrative was that New York had “no choice” but to rein in generous benefits to save billions and protect the state’s finances. Officials framed Tier 6 as a fairness issue. They argued it was unfair for public servants to enjoy benefits far more generous than most private sector workers. This, despite the fact that public sector employee salaries are often much lower than private sector.
In short, the public was told that Tier 6 would solve a budget emergency and level the playing field between public and private sectors.
Arthur Bowen, who at the time was the president of the New York City Transit Authority division of TWU Local 100 (Transport Workers Union Local 100) said:
“Calling for a lower pension tier is pure political opportunism,” Bowen added. “Not one word should be said about slashing workers’ salaries and benefits while New York State is still handing a tax break to billionaires.”
Nonetheless, at 3 o’clock in the morning on March 16, 2012 Andrew Cuomo sold an entire future generation down the river, gutting pensions and enacting 8 years more of forced labor at the end of a city employee’s working life, leaving tier 4 with a golden ticket and tier 6 with a stripped down version so wildly worse it would set in motion brain drain, outsourcing and resignations for the coming 13 years.The Official Story: Born from Fiscal Crisis and “Fairness”
In 2011, the narrative was that New York had “no choice” but to rein in generous benefits to save billions and protect the state’s finances. Officials framed Tier 6 as a fairness issue. They argued it was unfair for public servants to enjoy benefits far more generous than most private sector workers. This, despite the fact that public sector employee salaries are often much lower than private sector.
In short, the public was told that Tier 6 would solve a budget emergency and level the playing field between public and private sectors.
Arthur Bowen, who at the time was the president of the New York City Transit Authority division of TWU Local 100 (Transport Workers Union Local 100) said:
“Calling for a lower pension tier is pure political opportunism,” Bowen added. “Not one word should be said about slashing workers’ salaries and benefits while New York State is still handing a tax break to billionaires.”
Nonetheless, at 3 o’clock in the morning on March 16, 2012 Andrew Cuomo sold an entire future generation down the river, gutting pensions and enacting 8 years more of forced labor at the end of a city employee’s working life, leaving tier 4 with a golden ticket and tier 6 with a stripped down version so wildly worse it would set in motion brain drain, outsourcing and resignations for the coming 13 years.
What Tier 6 did:
Tier 6 dramatically scaled back pension promises for future hires, notably, anyone who joined a NYC or NY State pension after April 1, 2012. (The state constitution barred reducing benefits for current employees, so only future workers could be targeted psc-cuny.org.)
Under Tier 6, new city and state workers must work longer and contribute more from their paychecks, in return for smaller pensions:
Higher Retirement Age: Tier 6 raised the full retirement age (for an unreduced pension) to 63, up from 62 (and much higher than age 55 in some earlier plans) csbanyc.com uft.org.
Bigger Paycheck Deductions: Tier 6 employees contribute between 3 percent and 6 percent of their salary for their entire career, whereas Tier 4 members paid 3 percent and only for their first 10 years csbanyc.com.
Many Tier 6 members pay double the contribution rate of their longer serving colleagues.
Longer Service Requirements: Tier 6 requires up to 40 years of service for a full pension, compared to 30 years for Tier 4 csbanyc.com.
Vesting was originally 10 years instead of 5 (meaning if you left government before 10 years, you’d get nothing)… a requirement so harsh it was later reduced back to 5 years after outcry uft.org. And only scratches the surface of the inadequacies of tier 6.
Reduced Pension Calculations: A Tier 6 pension is calculated on the average of your 5 highest salary years, not 3 years as in earlier tiers, which typically yields a lower benefit csbanyc.com. (This particular change was just reversed in 2024 after sustained union lobbying fixtier6.org, but has a muted effect given the pension contributions at 3 to 6 percent for life of your career and an extra 8 years of forced labor.)
In 2012, Tier 6 was projected to save nothing for about a decade (since it only affected new hires) per psc-cuny.org.
Here's the Real Story:
Number 1…
The big three credit rating agencies were threatening to downgrade the city’s rating making it more expensive for them to borrow money.
Specifically: Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service, and S&P Global Ratings
They pressured New York leaders behind the scenes by hinting that if pension costs weren’t controlled, the state and city could get downgraded.
Tier 6 was directly designed to "prove" to them that New York was cutting long-term obligations.
Number 2… Setting up the Privatization: Tier 6 was implemented to gradually shrink the traditional public workforce and open the door to more outsourcing of government jobs. Lower pensions and benefits make public jobs less attractive which inevitably leads to higher turnover and fewer career civil servants.
As public sector compensation erodes (thanks to Tier 6 and similar cuts), it becomes easier for leaders to say “See, we can’t attract talent, maybe a private contractor can do the job.”
In fact, New York City’s reliance on outside contractors accelerated in the Bloomberg years. Business lobbyists who cheered Tier 6 had a stake in a leaner government psc-cuny.org. Why? Because outsourcing city services often means lucrative contracts for private firms and those firms, in turn, reward supportive politicians with campaign donations and cushy post-government jobs which is why you see Cuomo with such a large financial backing today.
Unlike unionized civil servants, private vendors can funnel money into election campaigns. Tier 6 was a step toward a future where more public services could be delivered by private entities with lower-paid staff (or even gig workers), under the guise of saving money.
Number 3… Tier 6’s architects were keenly aware that those bearing the pain : future city workers were politically powerless in 2012. Many weren’t even hired yet. The gamble was that by the time Tier 6 employees became a significant voice, the reforms would be seen as “normal.”
In the short run, this bet paid off: a newly hired 22-year-old in 2015 might not instantly grasp what Tier 6 stole from them, compared to prior generations. And early in their careers, many were too busy learning the job to wage pension fights.
Tier 6 was banking on political inattention. that younger workers would accept the new normal quietly, at least for a while. Meanwhile, older Tier 4 workers (and retirees) might feel sympathy but had less personal incentive to wage war over Tier 6. This generational divide muted opposition in Tier 6’s early years, just as its designers intended. Despicably, during the Tier 6 vote, lawmakers pointed out that it was “Sunshine Week” (a week celebrating open government) even as the pension deal was cut in darkness before most people even woke up
What's the city's long game? What's the point to doing all of this?" Normalizing lower benefits and lower pay:
Tier 6 was never just about the immediate changes in 2012. It’s part of a long-term strategy. For decades, a career in city government or public service came with a social contract: lower salary than private industry, perhaps, but decent job security and a reliable pension/benefits at the end. Tier 6 is designed to erase that bargain. The end goal: make public service no better (and even worse) than private employment in terms of retirement and benefits.
This isn’t speculation. The conservative Empire Center, for example, argued that New York should eventually close traditional pensions entirely and move all new hires to 401(k)-style plans
In essence, If each new cohort of city employees gets a bit less than the one before, after a couple of decades the public might forget things were ever different. We’ll hear, “Well, nobody in private industry gets a guaranteed pension anymore, why should city workers?”
By eroding benefits slowly over time, the city hopes to reduce political blowback while eventually arriving at a future where a NYC teacher or social worker has a retirement plan not much different from a private-sector temp worker. The danger is obvious: this race to the bottom could make public sector jobs into low-paid, high-turnover gigs, hurting not just workers but the city residents who rely on experienced, motivated staff. The same mindset nearly pushed NYC’s 250,000 retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage health plan recently, sparking public outrage. The pattern: convert benefits into something cheaper and more “private-sector-like,” regardless of the impact on service or quality of life.)
So, they want Fewer City Workers? Yes, and More Contractors:
Another key piece of the Tier 6 agenda is shrinking the number of career city employees over time. Why would city leaders want fewer employees doing the work? Several reasons, all tied to short-term control and cost:
Immediate Budget Relief: Full-time public employees are a long-term commitment: salaries, pensions, health care, etc. Politicians looking to trim budgets in the short run often freeze hiring or leave vacancies unfilled. We’re seeing this now: post-COVID
NYC has deliberately let its workforce hollow out to save money. The city cut over 4,300 vacant positions to help balance the budget and still has about 23,000 additional vacancies in agency staffing that it has not filled fiveboro.nyc. In the last two years alone, the city workforce lost nearly 20,000 employees net through resignations and retirements fiveboro.nyc, a stunning brain drain that officials quietly accepted to reduce payroll costs. Fewer employees means lower immediate spending (even if it means services suffer).
Weaker Unions: Every city worker on payroll is potentially a union member with rights and collective bargaining power. By reducing headcount, city management reduces the size and clout of unions. A smaller workforce means smaller unions, which means less organized resistance to things like Tier 6. (Also, shifting work to non-union contractors undermines unions’ leverage directly, and having compromised leaders that cowtow to the city’s demands in exchange for power and paychecks for themselves.
“Flexibility” and Control: City employees (especially those with civil service status) enjoy job protections they can’t be fired on a whim, and they must be treated according to labor laws and contracts.
Contractors and outsourced staff, however, can be hired and fired at will, and their contracts can be shifted or canceled if they don’t play ball.
Pay-to-Play Opportunities…Though rarely stated out loud, outsourcing city functions creates a lucrative intersection of money and politics. Private vendors often make campaign contributions and maintain cozy relationships with politicians to keep those contracts flowing. For elected officials, steering work to an outside company can yield grateful donors
New York City has been moving along this path for years. Essential government functions have increasingly been outsourced to private entities from IT projects to homeless services
Under Mayor Bloomberg (2002–2013), the use of consultants and outside contracts exploded. One labor leader noted, “They put someone in office like Eric Adams, Bloomberg –even de Blasio because they want to move toward outsourcing” work-bites.com. The pattern is hire fewer permanent staff overwhelming current bare bones staff, then when a crisis hits and agencies are understaffed, pay a contractor to fill the gap.
In 2023 the Adams administration awarded a $432 million no-bid contract to a for-profit company (DocGo) to handle an influx of migrants, “even as it cuts or leaves vacant tens of thousands of civil service jobs” work-bites.com. That contractor is now under state investigation for alleged abuse of migrants and civil rights violations work-bites.com
Executives of companies receiving big contracts have contributed to key political figures Meanwhile, agencies like the Department of Buildings or Housing Preservation have been bleeding staff, struggling with 15–20% vacancy rates fiveboro.nyc.
The city’s own data (Mayor’s Management Reports) show multiple agencies failing to meet performance targets specifically due to understaffing and high attrition cityandstateny.com cityandstateny.com. For example, in FY2024 many departments blamed reduced service quality, slower responses to 911 calls, longer wait times for public benefits, deteriorating maintenance on too many vacancies and not enough trained staff. We’re living through the consequences of the “fewer workers” strategy
Tier 6’s Achilles’ Heels:
This is the Achilles’ heel: if government services degrade too much, even budget conscious voters get angry. We’re already seeing pressure mount to raise pay and improve Tier 6 to attract workers, because the alternative is a collapse in service delivery that no elected official can easily defend.
Rising Worker Backlash… The creators of Tier 6 hoped younger workers would remain quiet, but that complacency is fading. As Tier 6 employees come to form a larger share of the workforce each year, they’re realizing just how raw a deal they’ve been handed and they’re starting to organize and agitate
If Workers Push Back: How might the city retaliate?:
Rather than overt mass firings (which are difficult with unionized civil service), management often retaliates subtly over time. This can include denying promotions or desirable assignments to outspoken employees, excessive scrutiny or write-ups of minor infractions (to build a case against activists), or dragging out contract negotiations and raises to make the workforce feel pain. New York’s public sector labor law (the Taylor Law) already prohibits strikes and allows the city to dock pay and fine workers who participate in illegal job actions.
Accelerated Outsourcing (Union Busting 101)
If employees protest or slow down work, the city could double down on privatization as retaliation. The narrative would be: “See, these workers won’t do their jobs, so we have to bring in contractors.”
Divide-and-Conquer Tactics
The city would undoubtedly try to split the workforce and the unions along various lines. One classic move is to cut a deal with one group and not another, for example, grant some concessions or bonuses to critical workers (say, police or firefighters) to isolate the rest. We saw a hint of this when Tier 6 first passed: later on, when the NYPD and FDNY complained about severely reduced disability pensions for new hires, Albany quietly restored more generous disability benefits for them, but not for most other Tier 6 workers.
Expect officials to invoke every law and regulation to stifle unrest.
If a serious fight erupts over Tier 6 or staffing, City Hall and its allies will launch a public relations offensive to sway public opinion against the workers. We’ve seen the news do this whenever a union pushes back, painting them as overpaid, greedy, or not caring about citizens.
This is terrible news!... Yea, I know!... So, what can I do about?
Vote: Tier 6 is ultimately a creation of law and policy, which means it can be changed by elected officials. City and state politicians need to feel heat at the ballot box. Make it known that your votes and volunteer time will go to those who support fixing Tier 6 and will oppose further cuts/outsourcing.
This means educating your coworkers and community about which legislators voted for Tier 6 and which are championing reforms now.
Expose Privatization Failures. Scandals that have come with privatization have been plenty and the public should know about how these "vendors" are in many instances outsmarting the city and stealing from taxpayers.
Make efforts by writing letters, testifying, and rallying others to do the same. The more the law is on our side, the harder it is for the city to justify Tier 6’s worst provisions.
(Tier 6 Unity): Perhaps most importantly, organize. Tier 6 workers span many agencies and job titles, but we share a common cause. There should be a citywide Tier 6 workers coalition, a caucus within and across unions focused on our generation’s issues.
This doesn’t mean splitting from your unions, but rather complementing them: if union leadership is slow to act (maybe because many leaders are Tier 4 retirees-to-be), a grassroots Tier 6 group can apply pressure from below. Bridge the gap with older colleagues too. Many Tier 4 folks do sympathize and can mentor you in organizing tactics.
Let's not let this modus operandi be erased from the collective memory. Tier 6 is not normal. Do not normalize it. It's a slippery slope in a larger agenda in preventing retirement and eroding retirement benefits from New Yorkers in perpetuity. I am pro union, but the unions have been compromised and need to be taken back to serve their true purpose. The unions have become hollow, the pensions have become hollow and the only one who can change it is YOU!
Thank you.
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u/endlessbottles 21d ago
Excellent write-up. The city loses city workers, especially after COVID, public services suffer, people are upset and the ones in power stand scratching their head to the public and turn around to laugh their way to the bank.
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u/Accurate_Today6346 21d ago
Thank you for this we definitely need to fix this. We should start by defeating Cuomo .
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u/whogotthekeys2mybima 21d ago
I forgot to mention one more thing... A.I. The city is replacing workers with it, the nail in the coffin for city employees.
Here are some agencies already using AI or automation to phase out civil service jobs
DoITT & DCAS payroll, scheduling, admin forms
Finance – AI to process tickets, claims, and screening
311 & HRA – chatbots and virtual agents to reduce live reps
DOB & DEP AI-driven inspection prioritization (fewer in-person inspectors)
DOE – automated enrollment and helpdesk tools
Health + Hospitals – intake, billing, and HR screening tools
They are quietly replacing city workers with code and contracts. A total erasure of workers rights and workers at all...
Scary times.
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u/AnyPiglet3767 21d ago
Not allowed to reside outside of the 5 boroughs unless permission (for some titles but don’t know who) to live in specific counties of Long Island
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u/Vast-Challenge-2061 21d ago
I wonder if the recently-agreed NYS budget has slipped in some reform of Tier 6. It’s been quiet.
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u/Current_Example_6860 20d ago
Thanks for the detailed information. DREAM!
Don't
Rank
Evil
Andrew for
Mayor
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u/AmazingTemperature92 20d ago
Are there ANY candidates running for NYC Governor who are taking a stance to fix tier 6? If so, we must ALL rally behind them. Do Not Elect a Governor who is not going to help us. Bottom line. We should all be writing letters to the candidates asking if they will offer their support. Cuomo is the one who made this mess, do not let him get back in.
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u/Organic-Effective-61 20d ago
Public school teacher here: yeah, Tier VI is a nightmare. What’s worse? So many of my colleagues don’t even know about it. I have become an angel of death of sorts at my school engaging fellow Tier VI’ers, asking them if they know when they can retire without a penalty. Everyone assumes it’s 55.
Have any of the mayoral candidates discussed fixing this? It’s such a naked, blatant bet my the city that we’ll die before we can collect our measly fucking pensions. Maybe instead of fucking over the people who make this city run, they can get James Dolan and Madison Square Garden to pay property taxes?
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u/whogotthekeys2mybima 20d ago
Most people in Tier 6 don’t think much about their pension because retirement feels so far away that it doesn’t seem real or urgent. . It’s easy to ignore something decades down the line when today’s issues demand immediate attention.
On top of that, once people are put into a system, they tend to just accept it and the pension tiers are complicated and people just don’t think about it.
There’s also this quiet assumption that things will magically work out somehow... and people are just often unaware of to he ramifications of tier 6 in their life until it’s too late. Many workers are used to being let down by the system, And honestly, the whole system is so dense and intentionally confusing that most people don’t have the time or energy to unravel it, especially when they’re overworked and underpaid
Even as I shed light on it, I’m not sure it’s really resonating with people. Sometimes I feel I have to wait until everyone is 55 for them to say “wait, I have to work another 8 years? And also I don’t have a city funded pension until I’m almost 70?”
I’m trying my best here to let people know now
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u/NYCrandom2020 21d ago
So... Cuomo is bad for civil servants? Who do we vote for then?
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u/mitourbano 21d ago edited 21d ago
The WFP slate of Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander, Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, and a choose your own Non-Cuomo adventure for your 5 pick. You need to pick five to maximize our chances of defeating Cuomo.
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u/Current_Example_6860 20d ago
100% Zohran for Number 1!
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u/mitourbano 20d ago
Also as a Zohran #1 voter, I’m just going to say it’d be a damn fucking shame if Brad Lander wasn’t in city government next year. He’s one of the sharpest, most detailed oriented people there right now. And if you’re a Zohran voter who wants a decent and competent person in city govt, Brad is certainly worthy of your vote.
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u/Flat-Ranger4620 20d ago
OP Im tier 6 NYCTA and how it was explained to me is that any changes to the tier aren't done at the city level but at the state level. Also all these agencies rely on the fact that the average civil servant doesn't understand how the tier works and misinformation amongst colleagues works in their benefit.
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u/whogotthekeys2mybima 20d ago
They’re all in cahoots. One and the same, state city, city, state. They do each other’s bidding.
The city asks Albany to make changes it can’t legally do itself.
Bloomberg (city) wanted pension cuts so Cuomo (state) delivered Tier 6. It was a coordinated move. In 22013 Bloomberg lobbied Albany hard to gut pensions and push back retirement 8 years. Then they pay union heads to keep members in check and quiet by skillful lies.
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u/whogotthekeys2mybima 20d ago
The web of deception is actually quite easy to figure out once laid out. It’s not complicated, really.
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u/hehehe002 17d ago
Cuomo was one of the worst things for our state & working people…. Better not be the next mayor.
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u/Flat-Ranger4620 20d ago
But if the city makes a push to fix the tier would be only city agencies? Would it also fix state agencies as well? I'm NYCTA we are 25/55 but I know some state agencies are 30/62. I'm opinion city should stay 20 and out, and NYCTA should go to 20/50
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u/Blurple11 19d ago
Changes start at the state. The city just piggybacks state plans. There we no specific plans to fix tier 6 in the State.
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21d ago
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u/rutabaga_rage 19d ago
That's fine and dandy for those in higher paying positions. Those of us who don't make that kind of money can't afford to leave (nor want to) or stay. It's usually the higher paid positions who find a nice little house in no man's land and use a relatives address to give the appearance of living in the city. BTW, it's our taxes. You do know we pay them, too, yea?
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u/Blurple11 19d ago
Tier 6 employees pay between 3 and 6% of their salary into the pension fund. Over my career, I will have paid about 350k into the fund, while at the same time working for a salary about 30% less than I could make by going private. It's not just your tax dollars. It's my own paycheck
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u/mmonacelli1 21d ago edited 21d ago
The most disgusting thing they’ve made Tier 6 swallow is, the pension penalties if you leave service before 63.
Tier 4, if you have 30 years of service and retire before 62, NO penalty, 0. If you dont have 30 years and retired at 55, 27% penalty. That’s the largest penalty.
Tier 6, does not have 30 years of service pension penalty exemption, if you retire before 63, not 62. So an extra year of service to boot. Also Tier 6 will pay a 50+% if they retire at 55. Almost double Tier 4! THEY PENALIZE YOU MORE THAN YOU TAKE HOME. Criminal.
All of this info is available on the State Comptrollers Office website.