My Inter-Tier Marriage
"There’s still work to be done, but my wife and I are proud to stand behind President Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus. They’re not just dreaming of change—they’re making it happen."
Busting 4 Common Tier Six Myths before Lobby Day 2025 with Emily
Virtual lobby day is happening this week. Talk to your chapter leader and see how your school can get involved.
Let's all scream about Tier 6 and raise the volume until their ears explode!
John Herron is a middle school teacher at Seth Low in District 21. For more from him, you can check out Johnnyonthespotd21 on TikTok and Instagram
Like many UFT members who’ve married fellow teachers, I find myself in what I call an "Inter-Tier marriage." Let me explain!
When I joined the Department of Education, I was fortunate enough to qualify for Tier 4. And if you understand the stark difference between Tier 4 and Tier 6, you'll know that calling myself "lucky" is an understatement.
Here’s why. On Thursday, March 8, 2012, while most of New York was fast asleep, Andrew Cuomo, in coordination with the Republican-led State Senate, quietly planned an attack on the retirement benefits of future public sector workers. He released a pension reform bill to the public at 3:00 A.M. and pushed managed to get it passed within the hour. At the time, Cuomo claimed that this was necessary to respond to the financial crisis of 2008, and many in the state legislature bought into his narrative. But time and hindsight have revealed what this really was: political maneuvering.
Assemblyman Peter Abbate, who recently retired, saw through it from the beginning. Despite intense pressure from the governor, Abbate voted against the legislation and called the measure what it was, draconian and punitive toward public sector union workers. He knew what was happening: Cuomo, eyeing a future presidential run, wanted to show that he wasn’t beholden to unions, a core part of the Democratic base. You might remember how Chris Christie’s popularity soared when he took a similar approach in New Jersey after the 2008 financial crisis. It was easier for people to target union workers who had job protections and benefits, rather than ask why they didn’t have the same safeguards or how they could get them.
So, what did Governor Cuomo take from future generations of teachers on that March morning? For employees under the new Tier 6 , the retirement age increased from 55 to 63. Salary contributions jumped from 3% to as high as 6%, and instead of stopping after 10 years, contribution would continue throughout a teacher’s entire career. To make matters worse, the pension calculation shifted from an average of the last three years of service to an average of the last five, which resulted in a lower overall pension calculation.
As a committed union member, this has always outraged me, but it became personal when I met my wife, who’s also a UFT teacher. She’s brilliant at her job and works tirelessly for her school and students. We do the same work, yet because of an arbitrary difference in start date, she was facing a less secure financial future.
What amazes me, though, is that my wife hasn’t been worried—not since I met her. Why? Because President Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus are leading the charge to fix Tier 6. True to form, they’ve already achieved real results. Last year, the UFT fought hard and secured a significant legislative win: the pension calculation for Tier 6 members was shifted back to an average of the last three years of service, just like Tier 4. It’s a major step in undoing the damage Cuomo inflicted all those years ago.
There’s still work to be done, but my wife and I are proud to stand behind President Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus. They’re not just dreaming of change—they’re making it happen. They’ve rolled up their sleeves and are getting results.
Together, with Mulgrew’s leadership and Unity’s determination, we can reclaim the rights that Cuomo stole in the dead of night. The road ahead may be long, but I’m confident that one day, my wife and I will be able to retire together, on equal footing, thanks to the fight our union continues to wage.
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