NYC teachers’ union to pay legal tab for Staten Island’s congestion-pricing fight
NY Post
New York City’s powerful teachers’ union is bankrolling Staten Island’s legal fight to stop the MTA’s congestion pricing plan, The Post has learned.
The United Federation of Teachers is “taking the lead” on the Brooklyn federal court lawsuit, supplying the lawyers and planning to pick up all costs associated with the case, said Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, who along with the union is a plaintiff in the suit.
“I give [UFT President] Mike Mulgrew a lot of credit for having the guts to step forward,” Fossella said Friday night. “He said his members would be hurt by this – especially new teachers who make the lowest salary and have little to no say where they’ll be assigned.”
The union declined to say how much it expects to shell out in legal fees.
The lawsuit filed Thursday argues that teachers, firefighters, EMS workers and other essential public servants would be “forced to shoulder the burden of the MTA’s latest fundraising gambit.”
Mulgrew called Fossella “out of the blue” a few months ago and asked if Staten Island was serious about a legal challenge, the Republican borough president recalled.
