Today he says, "Yeah, I really didn't mean that. I was just talking shit to stir up fear":
After spreading fear across the city by saying he'd have to fire as many as 21,000 teachers if Gov. Cuomo guts education funds, Mayor Bloomberg admitted Monday that he won't go through with it.
"We just cannot go and fire 25% of our teachers, even if the economics say you should," Bloomberg said of the 75,000-teacher force. "We'll have to find another way to mitigate the pain."
It's not the first time the mayor has warned of sky-high layoff numbers that never materialized, but this warning - packaged with a political push to change seniority rules - struck teachers union President Michael Mulgrew as reckless "political posturing."
"You don't put out a number like that unless you're trying to create fear," Mulgrew said. "The political posturing is creating anxiety and pitting one community against another."
The mayor made the layoff threat on his weekly radio show Friday as he called for Albany to shake up seniority rules so schools could choose which teachers to keep instead of firing just those most recently hired.
Sunday, he ramped up that effort by telling parishioners at an influential black church in Brooklyn that he'd have to fire all teachers hired in the last five years - 19,500.
He said this would deeply affect poor, minority communities where many of the younger teachers work.
Mulgrew said teachers are "sick and tired" of the mayor blaming teachers for the city's woes.
"Everything they do seems to be a political campaign rather than running the city," Mulgrew said. "This guy is going out there, disparaging teachers ... He's going out and creating fear when we know at this point that every layoff is hurting children."
I can't believe I am going to write this - but Mulgrew's right.
Everything Bloomberg does IS a political campaign to push through his corporatization policies.
This was NEVER about actual governance or helping the school system.
This has ALWAYS been about busting one of the last powerful unions - the teacher union - and ridding management of work rules like tenure and seniority that they see as "onerous."
So now that Bloomberg has publicly admitted he was full of shit when he threw out the 21,000 layoff number (and as Accountable Talk noted, this wasn't the first time that Bloomberg has done this), maybe the news media can stop promulgating the fear and loathing Bloomberg tries to spread regarding teachers and the school system by calling him to account for his reckless, fear-ridden rhetoric.
But why doesn't anybody publicly call him on this--outside of the UFT? I mean in a serious way. A mayor of a major city lies to create a climate of fear in order to secure his political agenda and he gets away with it? How does he manage to maintain any credibility? I think it's especially outrageous that he lied at a church service.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like this jerk is getting ready for a run for the White House in 2012.
ReplyDeleteThis is one great writing piece! May I link this to my blog please?
ReplyDeleteI love it, everything from your commentary and to Michael Mulgrew being quoted.
Anon, I completely agree - instead of calling him "Liar, liar, expensive pants on fire!", the local news "media" let's him get away with this stuff, year after year. As AT pointed out, he pulled the EXACT same shit on the EXACT same day one year previous with the EXACT same number to be laid off.
ReplyDeleteSusan, I think he still has delusions about that. I think the Bloomberg Blizzard Disaster of 2010, coupled with the Cathie Black fall-out and the CityTime scandal, will put three permanent nails in his White House coffin, but you know, if it makes him happy to dream big dreams, then more power to him. There is NO FREAKING WAY he gets elected to the WH, however. Not after all the negatives this year, and not with the anti-gun stance (which won't play well in Peoria or other states he would have to win.)
Thanks for the kind words, Sweet Girl Tracie. Yes, please link.
To be fair, the first Times article I read about the 20,000+ layoffs did say it wasn't plausible and that Mayor Mike had used this tactic before . It was presented in incredibly mild and nonconfrontational terms, but it was there.
ReplyDeleteI'm not religious, but getting up in front of a Sunday church service and knowingly reciting elaborately constructed falsehoods seems to be kind of an awful thing to do, no?