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.
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