{"id":299102,"date":"2026-07-17T23:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299102\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T23:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:20:12","slug":"powerful-uft-union-boss-pushed-10k-teaching-assistant-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299102\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerful UFT union boss pushed $10K teaching assistant raises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Powerful United Federation of Teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew was the driving force behind the City Council\u2019s controversial move <\/a>to give teaching assistants $10,000 raises \u2014 on top of a bloated education budget, sources revealed Friday.<\/p>\n

Mulgrew pushed council allies, including Speaker Julie Menin, to pass a bill with the pay bump that bypassed union contract negotiations, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.<\/p>\n

But many critics worry the end-run around the collective bargaining process could open the floodgates for other budget-busting union asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bad idea and a bad precedent,\u201d said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a prominent conservative think tank. <\/p>\n

UFT President Michael Mulgrew pushed for a paraprofessional pay raise bill to help stay in power, sources said. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going do this with all unions who can\u2019t get a deal?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources said Mulgrew dropped the ball for years on paraprofessional pay during collective bargaining, leading him and his council cronies to craft a workaround after he faced a stiff leadership challenge<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

It means more funding for public schools, on top of the whopping $38.6 billion budgeted for the Department of Education, the most of any city agency.<\/p>\n

The final bill unanimously approved by the council Thursday also dovetailed with what insiders said was Menin\u2019s desire to score political points against Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom sources believe she plans to challenge in the 2029 Democratic mayoral primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the council is positioning itself as more moderate, it wants to spend more than the mayor,\u201d Gelinas said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani supported the raises during his 2025 mayoral campaign, but changed his tune once in office. He raised concerns Thursday that the pay bumps should\u2019ve been negotiated in collective bargaining.<\/p>\n

Now, all eyes are on whether Mamdani will sign the bill into law or opt for politically bruising veto fight. He has 30 days to either sign or veto it, or let it go into effect without taking any action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor is kind of in a box now,\u201d one source said. \u201cDoes he veto and enter into extensive litigation?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t veto it you\u2019d better stand back from the flood of unions who are going to be running to the council.\u00a0If they don\u2019t fight it, who needs a union?\u201d<\/p>\n

The pay raise bill puts Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a political bind. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Paraprofessionals\u2019 skimpy $32,000-a-year base pay became a hot-button issue last year, with Mulgrew rallying on City Hall\u2019s steps to support a bill to raise it by $10,000.<\/p>\n

Sources said the bill was introduced to give Mulgrew an opportunity to show he would fight for the teaching assistants as he faced a bitter leadership challenge from his former ally Amy Arundell<\/a>. Mulgrew this year again didn\u2019t secure the pay bumps as the union won up to $9,500 raises for teachers<\/a> affected by a delay in New York\u2019s class size mandate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like this problem hasn\u2019t existed all along,\u201d one source said. \u201cIf he was actually concerned about paras, he could have figured out a way to get them more pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Council members renewed their push for the paraprofessional pay bump bill after Mamdani\u2019s administration shot down the raises during negotiations over the city\u2019s behemoth $126 billion budget, sources said.<\/p>\n

The ostensible moderate Menin leapt at the chance to effectively put the pressure on socialist Mamdani. <\/p>\n

She pulled a similar maneuver when she championed the expansion of a housing voucher program that Mamdani \u2014 who had supported it as a candidate \u2014 worried would be too costly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is eyeing a mayoral run, used the bill as a cudgel against Mamdani. Youtube\/NYCC<\/p>\n

A Democratic insider called the paraprofessionals bill, which was passed unanimously, a \u201cclassic City Council move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say its an \u2018outflank to the left,\u2019 but whenever there is a class of city workers that are underrepresented, or under-benefitted, you can expect that the City Council or state legislature would be there to legislate money that for everyone else goes to collective bargaining,\u201d the insider said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good move politically, but it just adds to the headaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

A City Hall spokesperson on Friday reiterated Mamdani\u2019s position that the pay raises were best resolved through collective bargaining. The spokesperson contended the council\u2019s bill directly violates the state\u2019s collective bargaining law.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur administration is reviewing the final language carefully and working to determine the appropriate next steps,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

The pay-raising bill \u2014 which carries a $324 million price tag over two years \u2014 ultimately will save the city money, given that it spends far more resolving so-called \u201cCarter Cases\u201d in which parents place their children in private schools if public institutions fall short, a City Council spokesperson claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city spends $1.5 billion on Carter Cases, which would drastically drop when the 1,600 paraprofessional vacancies are filled once their pay is raised,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue is, however, best resolved through collective bargaining, and we urge the mayor to reach an agreement with the UFT, which would render this legislation moot.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the UFT sidestepped the accusations against Mulgrew.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to go back to the sources for a fact check,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Powerful United Federation of Teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew was the driving force behind the City Council\u2019s controversial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19216,4337,19077,57,39187,9,56,63,65,64,5271,4338,58,82],"class_list":["post-299102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-budgets","tag-department-of-education","tag-julie-menin","tag-metro","tag-michael-mulgrew","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-schools","tag-united-federation-of-teachers","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}