It’s off the rails MTA chief accuses TWU prez of ‘drug scam’
Contract negotiations between the MTA and the city’s largest transit workers union have turned into a drug war.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Pat Foye sent an email to Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano at 3:15 p.m. Sunday that accused the union boss of running a “Utano Specialty Drug Scam.”
The curious complaint came after Utano suggested the agency meet with an outside firm that said it could shave millions off the MTA’s health care costs.
“I write concerning the extraordinarily troubling meeting you convened last week,” Foye stated in the email, which was obtained by the Daily News. “We were joined by highly compensated, out of town Local 100 consultants you selected and invited to the meeting to explain the Utano Specialty Drug Scam.”
Foye also sent the email to the MTA Inspector General.
The meeting Foye referenced was last Thursday. It included a pitch from Payer Matrix, a company that connects businesses to foundations set up by pharmaceutical companies to provide low-cost or free specialty drugs to patients who cannot afford them.
The company told the MTA it could save them roughly $50 million a year, but added it would collect a commission of up to 30% of any savings, according to records of the pitch.
In his heated email, Foye accused Utano of acting like President Trump by floating a plan that would discriminate against his own immigrant and African-American union members.
“In a Trumpian twist, Local 100’s highly-compensated out-of-town consultants explained that coverage under this Drug Scam would extend only to U.S. citizens, but not to the hundreds of Local 100 members who are working legally for NYCT, but are not yet citizens,” Foye wrote.
“The Utano Specialty Drug Scam is racially-discriminatory as it does not extend specialty drug coverage to a number of chronic diseases such as sickle-cell anemia that disproportionately impact your African-American members,” Foye noted.
Foye also argued that Local 100 members have the “best labor union prescription drug coverage in the nation.”
Local 100 and the MTA’s most recent contract expired on May 15 and the two sides are in talks for a new deal. A recent offer from the MTA proposed that Local 100 members contribute more of their paychecks to pay for health insurance.
Utano told The News that Payer Matrix merely gave a pitch. He shared it with the MTA only because he is trying to find new ways to improve health benefits and find MTA savings amid contract negotiations.
“Another day, another distraction from the TWU,” said MTA spokeswoman Abbey Collins. “The chairman is focused on continuing to negotiate in good faith with the union to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.”
Utano told The News he was approached by Payer MaFoye trix last year and put them in contact with the MTA. He said requested an in-person presentation that the MTA’s head of labor relations Anita Miller scheduled for last week.
Collins denied that and said Utano requested last week’s meeting.
Payer Matrix vice president Jennifer Hoefner said the MTA approached the company two years ago, not Local 100.
“We are a group that was brought in by them and making statements like that could cause us serious harm,” said Hoefner. “We’re kind of shocked that Mr. Foye is saying this.”
Utano asserted that he would never do anything to take away benefits from his members — but said Foye’s email made his blood boil because the chairman ended it by writing “Have a peaceful Columbus Day.”
“He’s attacking me for being Italian,” said Utano. “What? Does he want to call me a criminal because I’m Sicilian?”
Collins said Utano’s interpretation of Foye’s sign-off is “categorically false.”