Teachers, nurses, firefighters, EMTs, and other public professionals we all rely on are leaving their jobs. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need them now more than ever.
Unless we make these jobs more attractive, we will continue to struggle to recruit and retain workers in our communities, and important public services will become less reliable.
Tell your state legislators to improve benefits for public employees by reforming tier 6. Tell them that they need to do this NOW to keep our communities functioning.
Tier 6 is the significantly reduced level of benefits that many public employees receive in the New York State pension system. Any public employee hired since it was enacted 10 years ago is in tier 6. It was passed as an attempt to save money at the expense of working people.
The decreased benefits and increased costs borne by everyday working people as a result are making it harder to recruit and retain nurses, teachers, EMTs and other important public employees. That’s why it’s so important we fix it now.
In solidarity,
New York State AFL-CIO
