Powerful NYC teachers union boss flunks Gov. Kathy Hochul, Dems over ‘tone-deaf’ congestion toll
She’s no longer the teacher’s’ pet.
The head of the Big Apple’s most powerful teachers’ union flunked Gov. Kathy Hochul and “tone deaf” Democrats Thursday for socking working class New Yorkers with a $9 congestion toll — a week after the election where the party took a drubbing.
“It’s not what I expected to see Democrats doing a week after the election. It’s insane! Stop screwing the working class!” United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew told The Post, saying he will continue to press his active lawsuit to stop the congestion pricing plan.
Aside from Hochul, Mulgrew blamed Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate who voted for the law in 2019 — approved by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo — authorizing the scheme to tax drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street.
He said lawmakers should now step in and stop it.
“This toll is on the backs of whoever voted for it. It’s a great day for the rich people in Manhattan and a bad day for everyone else,” Mulgrew said.
Mulgrew said the tolling plan is all about funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — and not about congestion or pollution relief, as advocates claim.
He said traffic and pollution will get shifted away from affluent Midtown Manhattan to the less well-off residents of the outer boroughs.
Case in point, he said: Hochul has boasted about opening a new asthma center in The Bronx.
“The people in The Bronx are going to need it,” he said.
Mulgrew’s fury at Democrats is ironic, after his affiliate unions — the American Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers — devoted lots of resources to get Vice President Kamala Harris into the Oval Office and elect members of the party in battleground House seats.
It also puts Mulgrew on the same page as President-elect Donald Trump, who slammed the “congestion tax” as “massive” and “regressive” in exclusive comments to The Post earlier Thursday.
Mulgrew represents scores of teachers and other educators who drive from the suburbs and outer-boroughs to public schools located in the targeted “congestion” zone.
“Our lawsuit against congestion pricing continues,” he said.
“No one disputes that New York needs to invest in public transit. But doing it on the backs of the working people of New York City is wrong, and tone deaf.”
