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Calls Articles Misleading UFOA Pickets Post Over Disability Pension Pieces Calls Articles Misleading
The tabloid showed that between 2004 and 2007, 72 percent of retiring firefighters left with a disability pension, compared to 62 percent in 2000. The article suggested that this was a drain of the city's dwindling resources, as disability pensions are equal to three-fourths of the average of a uniformed employee's final three years on the job, while a regular pension is one half of that figure. Bringing the News to Post UFOA officers and delegates handed out copies of an op-ed article written by President John J. McDonnell, which the Post had refused to run, outside the newspaper's headquarters on March 3 and outside City Hall the following day. A Post spokesman said in an e-mail: "It is our long-established policy not to publish dueling op-ed columns, and instead welcome responses and opposing viewpoints in the form of a letter to the editor. We invited the Uniformed Fire Officers Association to submit a letter but, unfortunately, have not yet received one." "There's a clear explanation," Mr. McDonnell said in an interview after handing out flyers. "After 9/11, there was obviously a year of recovery [of firefighter remains at the World Trade Center site] going on. During that period of time, thousands of members of the department were exposed to the toxins and the hazardous materials that were down there, and many of us came down with pulmonary illnesses. In an effort to try and identify them and to treat them, the department put many of these individuals— at one point, I think there were close to 800 members—on light duty." As he explained, these members stayed on light duty for nearly two years until the FDNY doctors realized that these members were not improving despite medical treatment, which is when the department approved retiring them with disability pensions. "This is where you see that spike," Mr. McDonnell explained, pointing to a Post graph showing that 65 percent of retirees in 2003 received disability pensions. He also noted that the Post graph showed that last year, only 186 firefighters were granted disability pensions, compared to at least 300 in every year since 2000, with a high of 641 in 2002, when by far the largest number of firefighter retirements occurred. This, the UFOA president said, signaled an end to the 9/11 disability pension spike. Cites Younger Force "I'll predict that it goes even lower than that," Mr. McDonnell said. "The reason being is that many of the individuals who have retired who have these illnesses, and what you're seeing is a younger population in the department. Over 70 percent of the Firefighters in the department have about five years' seniority. There's only about 450 Firefighters out of the 9,200 that have 20 or more years." He added, "Clearly you can see that this is starting to come down as a result of the department becoming younger and many of those individuals not having been exposed to the incidents of 9/11." Mr. McDonnell recalled that the Post and Daily News have attacked the pension of public employees before, and argued that the Post was painting the system as exorbitant in order to propel Mayor Bloomberg's push to require uniformed members to work 25 years and reach age 50 in order to qualify for a full pension. Those now on the job need only work 20 years to receive full pension benefits, immediately upon retirement. The union leader added that the Post quoted an anonymous city official insinuating that there was wrongdoing at the FDNY Pension Board, even though there are management and independent panel members as well as union representatives reviewing cases, often denying applications. "You . . . have to jump through hoops to be approved for a disability," Mr. McDonnell said. |
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