Mamdani does right in fighting City Council teacher-aide giveaway

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Key points

• The mayor is suing to stop the $10, 000 grants to special-education paraprofessionals since they'd set a disastrous precedent.
• Mayor Zohran Mamdani is doing the right thing in fighting the City Council's push to award teaching bonuses outside the collective-bargaining process.
• Kudos to Mamdani for eating his campaign promise to backing the bonus bill; it's a sign of good sense that he looked more carefully and thought better.
• Lawmakers can't reduce union-worker pay without collective bargaining; letting the council add pay would badly undermine a core mayoral authority.
• We'll cross our fingers and hope for yet another pleasant surprise.

For context, the mayor is suing to stop the $10, 000 grants to special-education paraprofessionals since they'd set a disastrous precedent.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin argues the move would save the city funds on backing it's legally required to offer numerous special-needs kids, but it's an obvious long-term loser – and open invitation for every public-employee union to obtain lawmakers to award them gifts so to win union backing at the next election. Obtain opinions and commentary from our columnists.

We fear that last is why the council voted unanimously for the payment last month, a veto-proof majority that left the mayor no choice but to head to court, arguing that the move violates state labor law.

Kudos to Mamdani for eating his campaign promise to backing the bonus bill; it's a sign of good sense that he looked more carefully and thought better. United Federation of Teachers chief Michael Mulgrew is furious, naturally; tough. The UFT inevitably gets almost everything it asks for, anyway.

After all, mamdani's courage here might even signal a willingness to stand firm in the coming round of contract discussions with every city union; he doesn't owe his office to them. We'll cross our fingers and hope for yet another pleasant surprise.

For now, mamdani does right in fighting City Council teacher remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.