Mulgrew applauds city’s no-layoff decision but says mayor can’t freeze salaries

Just two days before layoff letters from the Department of Education were due to hit the mailboxes of 4,400 teachers across the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg rescinded those notices and announced that there would be no layoffs.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew applauded the mayor for calling off the layoffs. “I’m glad that he made the right decision to avoid massive disruption in the schools,” said Mulgrew.

The union had been engaged in an intense effort to stop all layoffs, campaigning both here in the city and in Albany, where state lawmakers are still debating a proposed $500 million cutback to school funding. Scores of members participated in rallies and leafleting around the city, and the union ran television and radio ads throughout the tristate area to raise public awareness about the issue.

In making his no-layoff announcement, Mayor Bloomberg told reporters that his decision was based on not giving teachers a pay increase for two years.

Mulgrew quickly pointed out to members and the press that the union and the city have not reached an agreement on freezing teacher pay.

“The mayor has the power to unilaterally rescind the proposed layoffs, but he does not have the power to unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract,” he said.

Mulgrew invited the mayor to bring his wage proposal to the bargaining table, where the UFT and the city are currently in mediation with the state Public Employment Relations Board because negotiations had come to an impasse.

Mulgrew and the mayor agreed to travel to Albany and Washington, D.C., to lobby for education funding.

“Preventing layoffs was key, but we still have to head off devastating budget cuts to our schools, our classrooms and the communities we serve,” Mulgrew said.

Before Congress is a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa that would throw a one-year lifeline of $23 billion to schools across the country to fund teacher jobs. As many as 300,000 teachers have been threatened with layoffs nationwide.

In a sign of how fluid the budget picture is, the mayor hinted on June 4 that teacher layoffs might be put back on the table if the state was not able to convince the federal government to restore the $600 million in Medicaid funding for the state that was removed from a jobs bill in Congress.

“Everything will be up in the air once again,” Bloom­berg said on WOR radio.

In the meantime, the union’s 300-member negotiating committee met on June 17 in preparation for the next mediation session with the city and the PERB mediator scheduled for July 21.