Legislative Alert: February 2, 2026

President's Message: Fix Tier 6

New York's Tier 6 pension system continues to penalize public sector workers by forcing them to pay higher contributions, while lowering their benefits. In fact, Tier 6 employees have lower benefits than their co-workers doing the same exact job, but who work under earlier pension tiers.

As a result, Tier 6 has become a major deterrent for the next generation of workers considering a career in the public sector, which has led to a public workforce and service crisis.

As a result of not having enough qualified workers, twenty million New Yorkers who rely on vital public services each and every day are substantially disadvantaged by our state's inability to effectively recruit and retain enough qualified staff.

Working with our affiliates over the past several years, the labor movement has made meaningful progress by reforming some of the harmful Tier 6 provisions related to Vesting and Final Average Salary. But on a whole, Tier 6 is still fundamentally unfair.

These are often high stress, dangerous jobs, now plagued by staffing shortages which are rampant at every level of government. As a result, mandatory overtime is through the roof, driving down morale and driving up employer costs. Adding insult to injury, the amount of pensionable overtime for Tier 6 is capped, yet workers are required to pay contributions on all of their earnings.

This is hardly the way to treat the people we rely on to keep our communities safe and operational, including workers in emergency services, health care, education, transportation and more.

Tier 6 must be reformed to restore fairness and to help stabilize the workforce. We must restore parity for public employees in Tiers 5 and 6 with those in Tier 4. This will improve recruitment and retention, provide retirement security for working families, and ensure that New York has the ability to provide the vital services our communities depend on every day.

Mario Cilento, President

Upcoming Meetings

NYSUT Legislative Reception
Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 6:00pm 
NYS Museum, 222 Madison Ave, Albany, NY 
Link to Register

NEW DATE: UFT Legislative Reception 
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 6:00pm 
Corning Tower, Albany, NY 
OFFICIAL INVITE

LABOR LOBBYISTS MEETING 
Monday, February 9, 2026, 1 pm 
This event will be located at the Albany office of the NYS AFL-CIO, 
100 South Swan St. Albany, NY.  
This meeting is for labor representatives only. 
Please RSVP to Nagma Singh at [email protected]