New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has suggested that the city would ask the municipal unions, including District Council 37, for concessions on health insurance similar to the groundbreaking ones that the transit workers' union accepted in its settlement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The leaders of that union agreed that the city's 33,700 subway and bus workers would for the first time pay part of their health insurance premiums.
See "A City Union Demands Wider Talks on Premiums", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, January 15, 2006