City’s gotta pay teachers $900M
There’s no backing out now, Bill.
That was the decision from an arbitrator who heard arguments from the teachers’ union and Mayor de Blasio on Friday about his decision to renege on a promised $900 million back payment to educators because of the city’s COVID-crunched cash flow.
The mayor had argued that the city couldn’t afford to make the planned payment because its coffers have been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic that shut down businesses across the Big Apple and set off a growing financial crisis.
But United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew told the arbitrator that the agreed-upon terms were binding — crisis or not.
The independent arbitrator sided with the UFT, but said the city could split the payments into two lump sums — one now and another next year — to ease the economic pain.
The agreement also stipulated no layoffs for public school teachers until at least the summer of 2021, and said de Blasio would have to honor the next budgeted raise of 3%, which will occur on May 14.
“This is far from a perfect solution for thousands of our members who are still owed deferred wages that can go back as far as 10 years,” Mulgrew said in a statement when the decision was announced late Friday.
“The decision recognizes the city’s difficult financial circumstances because of the coronavirus pandemic, but makes it clear that the city must find a way to meet its financial obligations to its educators.”
Earlier Friday, in defending his push to withhold the promised $900 million in deferred wages to teachers, the mayor sought to blame other city unions — saying if they had negotiated labor contracts with savings for the city, the pledge might not have been broken.
“We went to the unions and said, ’We need some kind of savings. We need something that’s going to get us out of this jam,’” de Blasio told WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer.
“We did not get those savings from the unions.”
City officials passed the budget in June with the caveat that the administration and public sector unions would have to identify $1 billion in savings by October or lay off 22,000 municipal workers.
The mayor hailed the arbitration ruling that came late Friday as a win for the city that will save it $450 million — but also warned that New York still needs $5 billion in federal or state aid to survive the upcoming fiscal year.
“The city faces the gravest fiscal crisis since 9⁄11, but we will build on our record of strong financial management by making the tough decisions and sacrifices we need to keep the city running,” the mayor said in a statement.
“This agreement allows us to avoid laying off the teachers who’ve done so much for New York City’s schools and students,” the statement said. “But make no mistake, the need for the Federal and State governments to step up and provide us with aid is as pressing as ever.”
The $900 million in deferred wages are the result of a decision made by former Mayor Bloomberg in a previous fiscal downturn in 2009 and 2010 to withhold from educators a wage increase that had been granted to other municipal workers.