New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened a legal battle with the City Council on Wednesday, filing a lawsuit challenging legislation that would provide $10,000 bonuses to public-school paraprofessionals and arguing that lawmakers improperly interfered with the collective bargaining process.
The RESPECT Check Act, approved unanimously by the City Council in mid-July, awards every New York City school paraprofessional a $10,000 “workforce stabilization” payment. The measure attracted 47 co-sponsors, giving it more than enough support to override a mayoral veto.
Mamdani’s administration, however, contends that the legislation intrudes on authority that belongs to unions and the collective bargaining process. The mayor’s office argues that the measure runs afoul of New York’s Taylor Law, which governs labor relations involving public employees and requires compensation disputes to be handled through collective bargaining.
“We will not allow the political process to replace the collective bargaining table,” a Mamdani spokesperson, Matt Rauschenbach, said in a statement. “Instead of protecting that process, the City Council has passed legislation that undermines collective bargaining and sets a dangerous precedent: allowing politicians to bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment themselves.”
“A one-time payment does not solve the underlying, long-term pay inequities facing paraprofessionals,” Rauscenbach added.
The court fight puts Mamdani at odds not only with City Council Speaker Julie Menin, but also with powerful organized-labor groups that supported the legislation, including the New York City Central Labor Council and the United Federation of Teachers.
“The City Council would not have introduced — let alone passed — this bill if it were illegal, and we would not have supported a bill that threatened our collective bargaining rights,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told The Hill Wednesday.
Menin and Council Member Carmen De La Rosa defended the measure in a joint statement Wednesday, arguing that the payments are both justified and financially prudent.
“This law is not only the right thing to do, it is also the fiscally responsible thing to do.”
The council members said the RESPECT Check program could help New York City combat its shortage of paraprofessionals, which they contend contributes to the roughly $1.5 billion the city spends resolving Carter Cases involving special-education services.
“The Council will vigorously defend the law,” the council members concluded.
Rauschenbach later said the Mamdani administration was already engaged in discussions with the UFT aimed at developing a permanent solution to shortages among school paraprofessionals. The UFT estimated in July that approximately 1,600 paraprofessional positions remained vacant across New York City.
The lawsuit also comes after Mamdani backed an earlier version of the proposal in 2025. That measure would have provided the supplemental payment as an annual recurring bonus, while the legislation ultimately enacted guarantees the $10,000 payments for only one year.
The City Council can renew the program after its initial year unless a collective bargaining agreement incorporates the expense by providing paraprofessionals with a pay increase of at least $10,000. Under that scenario, the city would repeal the bonus law.
{Matzav.com}
