By Fernanda Santos and David W. Chen
(From The New York Times, March 20th, 2012)
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the New York teachers’ union, has not been the most popular figure at City Hall under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. They have been at odds over almost everything, like Mr. Bloomberg’s push to close underperforming schools and his insistence on putting charter schools in district school buildings.
But Mr. Mulgrew can already envision the post-Bloomberg future — a future that is represented by the night and day cellphone calls from the men and women who are hoping to be the next mayor.
The candidates, declared and in waiting, call Mr. Mulgrew before they make big statements about education. They talk to him about their children, their vacations and his golf game. One of them invited him to Finland.
Mr. Mulgrew is a coveted friend for the people who hope to become mayor. His union, the United Federation of Teachers, has 200,000 members: they are highly organized, and they vote. And at a time when education is a major issue for the city, and in a race with only Democratic contenders thus far, the union’s membership could have a disproportionate influence in a potentially decisive primary in 2013.
“I just had a press conference with one, and I talked to another yesterday,” Mr. Mulgrew said one recent Friday, as the number for yet another contender appeared on his phone’s caller ID screen. “I guess I’m a popular guy.”
The courtship of Mr. Mulgrew is symptomatic of a broader phenomenon. Labor leaders are eagerly anticipating a better relationship with City Hall after Mr. Bloomberg leaves office at the end of next year, and the candidates to succeed him are fostering those hopes partly because they are ideologically more aligned with labor, and partly because they are hoping for the financial and electoral support that can come from union members. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who financed his own campaigns, did not take contributions from labor.