A top labor leader launched a harsh attack yesterday on City Council Speaker Gifford Miller for failing to block explosive hearings on union work rules in city schools.
“Those hearings were an insult to the entire labor movement,” declared Brian McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, which includes 1.5 million union members.
McLaughlin told a midtown labor audience he looks forward to the day “where our City Council leadership does not allow hearings that attack working people and interfere with the collective bargaining process.”
The Central Labor council fired off a letter demanding Miller explain “the process and procedures” that led to the hearing by Education Committee chair Eva Moskowitz (D-Manhattan).
Whether by coincidence or design, it took barely 90 minutes for Miller, a probable candidate for mayor in 2005, to offer words of conciliation.
Miller pointed out that some of the zany work rules in the teachers’ contract were “injected in past negotiations” that previous mayors had approved.