Cuomo Appears at UFT Headquarters to Honor...Firefighters

Straining to burnish his Union bonafides, New York Governor Andy Cuomo recently appeared at the Manhattan headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Cuomo surfaced not in support of school teachers, however, but firefighters, who rightly received a rise in benefits with the stroke of a state-funded pen. 

Ironically, while claiming to care about workers, Cuomo cares nothing about working teachers. It seems Cuomo wants to knock teachers out of the middle class so he doesn't have to fight for them.

And it is an assault on decency that the UFT would even allow the Lobbyist for the Students within a block of Union headquarters--let alone inside--proclaiming himself a champion of justice for workers. In case the UFT has forgotten, Cuomo's idea of "justice" includes closing public schools and firing teachers due to destitute and dysfunctional families (otherwise known as low test scores).

Cuomo would also like to see teachers and their pensions disappear, signing his name to Tier VI and Tweets like this: 

Evidently, justice ends where Cuomo's enemies list begins. Those who dedicate their lives to children will dedicate their appetites to cat food in retirement if Cuomo has anything to do with it.    

Furthermore, a looming 2017 constitutional convention ballot initiative would give Cuomo and his slimy associates the chance to finally enshrine laws that screw anyone who's been mean to Governor Andy, like teachers. A revised New York Constitution might exclude those pesky public pensions once and for all, for example, and Cuomo can do to collective bargaining rights in New York what his brother-from-another-mother Scott Walker did to them in Wisconsin. 

Helping one group of workers while punishing another is not fairness, but moral malfeasance, and cruelty cancels any kindness. The UFT should remember this the next time they open their doors to a man who's harmed their profession more than any politician in state history.