Mulgrew’s Chutzpah

Teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew is playing the sexism card in a bid to get a new benefit for his members. On Monday, Mulgrew told the City Council he’s “aggravated and pissed off ” that Mayor de Blasio’s negotiators are treating paid parental leave like any other potential perk. That is, they don’t want to give it without getting something in return.

Since three-quarters of United Federation of Teachers members are women, Mulgrew claims this is “a clear case of gender bias.”

Huh? Men would get the benefit, too. Indeed, another witness at that hearing was a male teacher outraged at how hard it was for him to spend time with a new child.

The UFT chief ’s real problem is that many of his members would never take the leave — so they won’t like giving up a few sick days or a potential salary hike to pay for it.

After all, when Team de Blasio imposed a similar trade-off to give 20,000 nonunion managers a six-week parental-leave benefit, many workers griped.

And Mulgrew is under pressure from union dissidents who’ve long complained that he hasn’t pushed hard enough to win the paid leave without any offsets.

Two years ago, Mulgrew called de Blasio “a willing partner” on the issue. But he recently complained, “The city has balked over and over.” Then came the “gender bias” bull.

Here’s the thing: The state law that mandated private-sector paid leave also directed public employers and unions to negotiate agreements for paid parental time off.

Average base pay across all UFT job titles is now over $73,000, plus fringe benefits that cost the city about half that, $37,000 — and teachers get summers off. Those benefits include excellent taxpayer-funded health care (even after retirement) as well as hefty taxpayer-guaranteed pensions. Job protections are so strong that it’s virtually impossible to fire teachers, even for rank incompetence, once they have tenure. And Mulgrew is negotiating with the de Bla

sio administration, not Bloomberg or Giuliani. It’s beyond absurd to think that Mr. Progressive is being harsh with the teachers union.

Sorry, Mike: Something for nothing isn’t how collective bargaining works. And, by the way, there’s nothing sexist about looking out for taxpayers.