By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org
    
NEW YORK – New York City’s unionized employees – a group that includes teachers – are foregoing millions in potential pay raises this year, under the expectation that bigger paydays await them once a new, union-friendly mayor is elected in November.
    
But United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew doesn’t want to wait that long.
    
Earlier this week, the teacher union head said Mayor Michael Bloomberg “should just do us all a favor” and “leave office now,” reports NY1.com.
    
Mulgrew is upset because Bloomberg will only agree to new union contracts that forego retroactive pay raises and require city employees to contribute more to their health insurance costs.
    
The public sector labor unions are demanding $8 billion in retroactive pay raises dating back to 2008, NY1.com reports.
    
Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway called the unions’ demands neither “affordable” nor “realistic.”
    
Since the two sides are at loggerheads, the city’s labor unions are willing to skip pay raises for this year and work overtime to identify – and help elect – the biggest pro-labor mayoral candidate in the upcoming election.
    
In other words, the unions are willing to leave untold millions on the negotiating table, just so they can secure bigger raises and better benefits once a union “friend” occupies City Hall.
    
That would be a dream come true for the UFT – and a nightmare scenario for New York City parents and taxpayers – who will have to pay higher taxes and settle for fewer academic programs, in order to satisfy the teacher union’s insatiable financial demands.