Democratic Consulting Firm Sides With Anthem Against NYC Public Employee Unions

In April 2022, news began to surface that Global Strategy Group (GSG) — a powerful New York-based consulting and lobbying firm with deep ties to the Democratic Party and a history of scandal — had done extensive work on Amazon’s partially successful union busting campaigns at two major warehouses, one in Alabama and the other in New York.

In response to widespread condemnation, the firm reacted swiftly, issuing a statement saying that “being involved in any way [in Amazon’s union busting] was a mistake, we have resigned that work, and we are deeply sorry.” GSG also endorsed proposed rules changes by the Democratic National Committee barring companies like theirs from doing union-avoidance work or work seeking to bolster claims by companies like Uber and Lyft that their workers are not “employees.”

But just three and half years later, GSG is now representing a dark money group seeking to overturn a democratically ratified collective bargaining decision over health benefits in New York City.

At the end of September, New York’s Municipal Labor Committee, which represents New York City public employee unions, signed off on a new healthcare plan to replace its existing plan with Anthem HealthChoice Assurance, a subsidiary of Elevance Health, formerly known as just Anthem, Inc. The move was designed to address both the limited network available to union members outside of New York (which impacted retirees who were not yet eligible for Medicare), and the desire to shift the plan to a self-funded model instead of having an external insurer manage its assets.

“As a longtime UFT [United Federation of Teachers] member and city employee, my work on the Health Care Committee was the first time I felt that we as city workers could directly participate in envisioning what our health benefits plan should and would look like,” said Terrain Reeves, a 26-year teacher and union chapter leader in Brooklyn, in an affidavit opposing efforts to overturn the new health plan.

Moving to a self-funded plan could open the door to longer-term savings by cutting out healthcare profiteering, like having primary care clinics specifically for city employees without the often-substantial overhead costs of hospitals — a model embraced by the New York Hotel Trades Council’s self-funded Taft-Hartley plan.

Anthem Behind “Hands Off” Group? 

Just one month after NYC labor unions signed off on the new plan, a group called Hands Off NY Care launched a campaign against the plan and filed a lawsuit to challenge it. GSG represents the group in media and communications matters.

And, on November 17, Anthem filed another lawsuit against the city over the process used for selecting the new contract.

GSG has long provided lobbying and strategic communications services for Anthem, raising the question of whether Anthem is the client financing Hands Off NY Care. Anthem did not respond to CMD’s request for comment.

The group’s petition for review focused on how moving to a self-funded approach would remove the plan from oversight by state insurance regulators — even though the plan would still be subject to oversight by the New York City Council and the city’s unions, which, together, account for far more oversight than the typical self-funded plan in the private sector. In their public statements, Hands Off NY Care has claimed that the process was “rushed” and lacked “transparency,” telling The City that the group is “deeply concerned that the City is rushing to put through a new plan that removes key state-law protections for workers, retirees, and their dependents.”

Recently, New York City public employee retirees organized an aggressive push against moving them to a Medicare Advantage plan. But the same level of grassroots support is not evident among the city workers and retirees who have signed up with Hands Off NY Care. Beyond those who are listed on the organization’s website — three former officials with the main city employees’ union District Council 37 (DC 37) — and an additional half dozen individuals who have filed affidavits, the group seems to have a very limited public presence. A recent proposed rally scheduled for November 10 to pressure City Comptroller Brad Lander to reject the contract was called off, despite relatively ubiquitous digital ads and a billboard truck parked outside of Lander’s office. Sources inside the city’s labor movement estimate that more than $100,000 was spent on advertising and mailers opposing the new plan and sent to union members.

Wanda Williams, who heads the group, was the longtime director of political action at DC 37 and is now the President of the Catskill Off Track Betting corporation, which abruptly closed operations in November 2024. In response to the closure, the New York State Gaming Commission wrote a letter to Williams stating that there had been “…a pattern of mismanagement that has plagued the organization for years.” While at DC 37, she worked as a special assistant to former DC 37 Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez, who was expelled from the union in 2024 over his extensive use of car service for commuting.

The group was incorporated in August and has Midtown Manhattan post office as its address.

Last week, Lander refused to block the contract, allowing the new plan — known as the NYC Employees PPO Plan and administered by EmblemHealth and UnitedHealthcare — to be officially registered on November 13. A hearing for the lawsuit filed by Hands Off NY Care is scheduled for December 1, after a judge declined the plaintiff’s requests for a temporary restraining order earlier in November.

In addition, union sources estimate that Anthem received $4 billion in revenue annually from managing the city’s healthcare plan.

GSG has taken other steps that risk its relationships with organized labor, a key Democratic party constituency. It has taken on the aggressively anti-union Vanderbilt University as a lobbying client at a time when the university seeks subsidies and favors in New York to establish a campus in the city. And GSG claims T-Mobile as a major client despite the firm’s union-busting history. The wireless giant is now subject to a boycott related to their history of union busting and their work with Elon Musk’s Starlink.

GSG’s shift from rejecting union busting to openly antagonizing labor unions again and taking on anti-union clients coincided with its partial acquisition by SEC Newgate in 2022, which in turn led to the Bahrain-based Investcorp becoming a majority shareholder in 2023. The largest shareholder in Investcorp is Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. The United Arab Emirates is one of very few countries that ban labor unions outright, and has hundreds of thousands of migrant workers toiling under what observers have called “modern-day slavery.”

Editor’s note: Wanda Williams responded after publication, saying that “Hands Off NY Care has thousands of members who are current and former municipal employees, and is funded by multiple non-profit health care organizations. Our coalition is supported by municipal employees, retirees, and families who are deeply concerned about protecting access to health care in New York City.” Global Strategy Group also provided comment after publication, stating that “GSG is working with Hands Off NY Care to ensure that New York City’s active and retired municipal workers receive the highest quality health care possible. Any insinuation or statement that our work violates our commitment to labor is false.” Neither GSG nor Hands Off NY Care identified the funding sources of their work.