It was rainy and chilly in New York City yesterday, but hundreds of local union bigs wouldn’t have known it.
As many as 300 labor bosses, who represent New York’s struggling municipal workers, have been whooping it up in sunny Puerto Rico on a union-paid junket, even as their rank-and-file members pinch pennies back home.
The honchos are on a six-day, fun-and-sun jaunt in San Juan — on their cash-strapped memberships’ dimes — preferring to host their union “convention” in a posh hotel instead of, say, more modest digs in stodgy Schenectady.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” fumed an Albany insider about the New York State Public Employee Conference’s annual frolic at the luxurious Caribe Hilton.
“It’s piggy, piggy, piggy! It’s pigging out in Puerto Rico! Then they come back to New York with their hands out.’’
Two Brooklyn politicians who sit on statehouse committees that oversee public-sector workers — Sen. Martin Golden (R) and Assemblyman Peter Abbate (D) — even held fund-raisers there, The Post has learned.
The gigs were attended by the same union officials who often appear before their committees pleading their members’ cases.
NYSPEC is comprised of unions representing thousands of state, local and other government workers, most of whom work in New York City. They include MTA workers, Port Authority police officers and NYPD captains.
The sun-soaked union bosses yesterday defended their jetting to warmer climes.
“It was a very nice venue. We got a lot of business done,” insisted Al Hagan, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.