Mulgrew Demanding Wage Increase in Return for Evaluation Sign-off

In a stunning development, Michael Mulgrew appears to have developed a backbone. According to the New York Post and DOE officials, Mulgrew has refused to sign off any new evaluation system without a guarantee of a wage increase in a new contract:

The teachers’ union has refused to sign a long-awaited agreement with the city on a new teacher evaluation system unless it gets a guarantee of wage increases in the next contract, Department of Education officials charged today.

Lending credence to the usually suspect Post, Chancellor Walcott responded saying, "Mr. Mulgrew’s failure to bargain in good faith and insistence on including issues unrelated to teacher evaluation is unacceptable and illegal." Leave it to Bloomberg's toadie to claim that negotiating a contract is illegal.

Mulgrew declined to comment, saying "“I’m not negotiating in public."

Of course, the Post is possibly the most unreliable paper in the country, but I think this story must be true. Why would the city claim that the UFT is stalling for more money if it isn't? Wouldn't that basically force Mulgrew to do just that?

Also, the terms seem to be somewhat Mulgrewian, in that it appears that the union is asking for a "guarantee" of a raise in the next contract, rather than an immediate signing of a new contract with the 4+4% raises given to the rest of the city's unions. Even if the city agreed, would that contract ever get signed? Does anyone remember when the city guaranteed that Teacher Data Reports would never be made public and then supported them being published in the papers? Moreover, if a new contract isn't signed and we're only given a vague guarantee, would the next mayor have to honor it? Would a downturn in the economy, real or manufactured, nullify it?

So this appears to be real. Perhaps Mulgrew really does feel the heat of MORE and his re-election bearing down on him, especially after he bungled Sandy. We can hope. The signs are good.

Now let's see the UFT execute.


UPDATE: The city has filed with PERB, claiming that the UFT is not bargaining in good fair by demanding an "economic credit" to be applied to any increase in a future contract. See the filing here.

The Deal Mulgrew Should Make

I was thrilled with the news that the city's labor unions refused to give in to Mayor4Life Bloomberg's blackmail by rejecting a deal to tap into a health care fund to the tune of 360 million dollars to avert layoffs. When the news first came out, I was hoping that Michael Mulgrew was one of the driving forces behind the refusal. In fact, he's trying to revive the deal.

Mulgrew still doesn't get it. This mess is of the mayor's making, and he is looking for a way out. Why should the city's unions fund the mayor's escape hatch? By even entertaining the idea of funding our way out of layoffs, we are buying into the mayor's lie that the city doesn't have the money. But the city does have the money--there is a 3.2 billion dollar surplus. How can we ask for a new contract with the pay increases we are due when we are tacitly admitting that the city is broke? It makes no sense. So besides bailing His Moneyness out, we would be guaranteeing 3 more years of no raises and annual layoff threats. This is the deal that Mulgrew is so anxious to make?

Here's the deal we should make: We'll give him the money in exchange for a 2.5 year no layoff guarantee and the 4% annual raises we should have gotten in the first place. That way, we won't ever have to deal with the midget mayor again, unless he decides to buy himself a fourth term.

And knowing the mayor's penchant for ignoring deals he has made, such as the promise that TDRs would remain private, we need this deal to be iron clad. Knowing Bloomberg, he'd create a new "crisis" next year that would necessitate scrapping the agreement. To prevent this, any agreement should stipulate that emergency layoffs could only occur if all city contracts with outside vendors, such as the 900 million being spent this year, are cancelled first.

That's a deal I'd make.