Teachers-union President Randi Weingarten has found herself caught between a rock and some hard hats over a $28 million project to develop affordable housing for her members - because it's using non-union construction workers.
The much-ballyhooed plan to provide educators low-cost housing in The Bronx is facing the wrecking ball after the union chief urged trustees of the teachers' pension system - whose bonds are funding the project - to pull out.
"Teacher and work-force affordable housing is very important to us, but so is ensuring that construction is union built," Weingarten said in a letter to the trustees.
Weingarten said she learned about the union issue just last week. The union boss said she would voice her displeasure over the non-union workers today during a demonstration at the Melrose job site.
But union carpenters are planning to picket the UFT's Manhattan headquarters, where Weingarten will celebrate her 50th birthday at a 7 p.m. ceremony, according to a source.
The hard hats say that if she weren't trying to cut corners by using non-union help, she would have at least known about the arrangement sooner. "Either it was ignorance or apathy," said Stephen McInnis of the New York District Council Carpenters Union.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
UFT'S CONSTRUCTION CREW IS NON-UNION
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