New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has filed a lawsuit to stop a law passed by the New York City Council granting one-time $10,000 bonuses to low-paid school aides, known as paraprofessionals. The move marks a surprising break with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which endorsed Mamdani in last year’s mayoral election and had his support for the bonuses during the campaign.
From the way the article describes it, he’s basically trying to assert that the collective bargaining of the union is not the city council’s job, and is the sole responsibility of the mayor.
I guess the argument is that City council shouldn’t be trying to pass laws about compensation of union employees, as it violates the established collective bargaining rules.
Dunno if there’s more to it than that.
Allegedly the city council wrote it so it wouldn’t violate those laws though. And not sure why unions should need to bargain only with the mayor?