Committee comity

To the editor:

I have written about the need for Gregory Floyd, the Municipal Labor Committee’s secretary and Teamsters 237 president, to recuse himself from an imminent and consequential vote. A decision will be made on whether to award EmblemHealth a contract to provide health benefits to municipal in-service workers, pre-Medicare retirees and their dependents.

A review of government records revealed the appearance of a conflict of interest, as EmblemHealth donated $550,000 since 2018 to charities on behalf of Mr.Floyd, also paying for tickets in an Emblem-reserved Barclays Center suite for him. This is legal, but as he does serve on the company’s  board of directors, abstaining or stepping down from EmblemHealth would be the honorable thing to do.

When Mr. Floyd defended his 2021 vote for EmblemHealth to receive a Medicare Advantage contract (which they lost), he opined that “It’s only a conflict if I was the only union leader voting or if I had the most influential vote. It wasn’t the case. I had one vote — that was it.” 

But this was disingenuous, to say the least: The MLC has a weighted vote. The MLC’s rules plainly state that “In every vote taken in the MLC each shall be entitled to cast one vote for each 250 employees, or fraction thereof.”

Mr. Floyd is well aware of this, because among his responsibilities at an MLC meeting, “The secretary shall report the number of votes to be cast by each delegate.” Teamsters 237 is one of the larger unions. So modesty does not become him.

If Mr. Floyd is insistent on participating in the MLC vote, a  plausible explanation is needed.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, he has not responded to inquiries. The silence speaks volumes. 

Harry Weiner