Teachers union spends millions from membership dues on parties and conferences
- Last Updated: 6:25 AM, December 31, 2012
- Posted: 1:54 AM, December 31, 2012
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EXCLUSIVE
At least their union dues are working overtime.
While city public-school teachers have gone without a new contract or regular pay raises for three straight years, their union, its staffers and political cronies have been living large off their union dues, a Post review found.
Included in the United Federation of Teachers’ $166.5 million in spending last year was a hefty $33.4 million in salary for union staffers — a slight increase from the year prior.
More than 90 staffers earned six-figure salaries between July 2011 and June 2012, the records show — including President Michael Mulgrew, who took home $275,000.
NY Post: Chad Rachman
FRUITS OF LABOR: UFT President Michael Mulgrew pulled down $275,000 running the $166 million teachers union.
The union, which bumped its income from membership dues by $3 million in 2012 — to $129 million — spent nearly $1 million just on training for union staffers at the Rye Town Hilton in Westchester.
The union also spent more than $1 million for one company, Lackmann Culinary Services, to cater food for its various meetings and events.
That feasting didn’t even include the pasta payout of nearly $18,000 to Ravioli FAIR Caterers in Brooklyn.
An additional $1 million was spent at splashy conferences and events at the New York Hilton, the Helmsley Hotel and The Waldorf Astoria, according to labor filings submitted to the federal government.
The union also bankrolled dozens of dining events across the city at places like Russo’s on the Bay — where a single night’s expense tab ran over $21,000 — and at Antun’s in Queens.
A separate bash at the end of the school year ran more than $7,000 at Moran’s bar and restaurant in Chelsea.
Even the bill for promotional tchotchkes — like tote bags and bandannas bearing the UFT logo — ran into the six-figure range.
“We are proud of the work we do advocating on behalf of the children and teachers of New York City,” Mulgrew responded when asked about the largesse. “It takes a lot of money to resist the attempts of Mayor Bloomberg and his allies to undermine our public schools.”
The UFT’s political allies — mostly opponents of charter schools and of school choice in general — were also particularly well-fed in 2012, records show.
The group that succeeded ACORN, New York Communities for Change, has become virtually a subsidiary of the UFT — receiving nearly $400,000 for at least the second straight year.
Among the services it performed was the organizing of parents to oppose charter-school siting within public school buildings.
The former head of ACORN, Bertha Lewis, even got $17,500 for the new group she’s heading — the Black Institute.
Also getting a piece of the UFT pie this past year was the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network — which got $50,800 in contributions.
The New York chapter of the NAACP, a union ally in the fierce battle over school closings and charter schools, received $42,200.
The union’s coffers grew this year largely because its membership expanded by nearly 20,000 people — to 182,000 members — with most of the newbies coming from the day-care sector.
Union dues also crept up to semimonthly payments of $49.39 — compared with $48.74 in 2011.