Through your membership in the UFT, you are lucky to count yourself among the minority of Americans who still have a defined-benefit pension plan. At the end of your career, regardless of the shape of the economy or the state of the stock market, you will have a guaranteed annuity for life based on your years of service and your salary.

Most working Americans have only a 401(k) tax-deferred savings account for which they shoulder all the investment risk. At retirement, the employee has to figure out how to stretch for the rest of their lives whatever money they have accumulated in the account.

State and city public employee pension systems are funded by a combination of government and employee contributions as well as by the investment returns of the pension funds. Each pension system in New York State is managed by a board of trustees that includes representation from union and management.

In New York, public employee pension benefits are codified in state law — they are not a subject of collective bargaining. The Teachers’ Retirement System, for example, was first created by an act of the state Legislature in 1917.

In 1938, voters amended the New York State Constitution to protect public employee pensions. Since then, the state Constitution guarantees that when pension benefits are promised to public employees, those benefits can neither be “diminished nor impaired.”

But state lawmakers can pass legislation to modify pension benefits for future state and city employees. New pension plan tiers come into existence when the state Legislature enacts new laws that change benefits, contribution rates and service requirements.

The first time a new tier was created was in the midst of the city’s fiscal crisis in 1973. Those hired after July 1, 1973, were grouped in Tier 2. In 1976, Albany enacted another round of cutbacks to public employee pensions with the passage of Tier 3.

The UFT and its allies waged a vigorous battle to secure a unified pension system. The creation in 1983 of Tier 4, which restored much of what was taken away by the 1976 law, was a major milestone in that effort.

But a pension tier is never set in amber. Over the past 40 years, legislative amendments to each pension tier narrate a tale of continuous advocacy by the UFT, NYSUT and other public employee unions.

Tier 4, for instance, went through a variety of modifications during its 29 years of existence. In 1985, the state Legislature passed a law that allowed Tier 3 and 4 members to retire with an unreduced pension at age 55, instead of 62, as long as they had 30 years of service. Between 1997 and 2003 alone, the state Legislature passed 26 amendments to the state’s retirement and Social Security law that improved pension benefits of UFT members in Tiers 2, 3 and 4. In 1998, the vesting period was reduced to five years for members of all tiers. In the year 2000, Albany passed legislation enabling Tier 3 and 4 members to stop contributing to their pensions after 10 years of service. Other amendments delivered targeted improvements to military veterans, members with breaks in service and members who have a terminal illness.

These amendments in the aggregate resulted in significant improvements for Tier 4 members over time.

In 2008, another milestone was achieved with the passage of the 55/25 retirement program, which allowed Tier 4 members who opted in to the program for an additional 1.85% annual member contribution after 10 years to receive an unreduced pension after 25 years of service, down from 30 years, as long as the person retiring was at least age 55.

Tier 4 members who began working for the DOE after Feb. 28, 2008, were automatically placed in a pension plan with a 4.85% employee contribution for the first 10 years and 1.85% annually for up to 27 years. The following year, the pension plan was changed again to require a 1.85% employee contribution each year for the remainder of service.

Then, in one fell swoop in 2012, a lot of that progress was wiped out when the state Legislature enacted Tier 6 at the behest of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Following a coordinated lobbying campaign by state and city unions, state lawmakers passed the first changes to Tier 6 in 2022. The most significant reform allowed all members of Tier 6 as well as Tier 4 members hired after Dec. 10, 2009, to vest after five years again, down from 10.

Now the UFT and NYSUT are launching a major push to make Tier 6 stronger and the pension system more equitable. Each amendment to the pension law we are able to achieve will further our goal of ensuring a secure and dignified retirement for all UFT members, regardless of their tier, after a lifetime of service.

This column is compiled by Tom Brown, David Kazansky and Victoria Lee, teacher-members of the NYC Teachers’ Retirement Board.