By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

NEW YORK – A new lawsuit – parts of which read like a Danielle Steel novel – alleges that knowledge of a romantic encounter between United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew and a co-worker was used by city leaders to “extort” labor concessions from the teachers union.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2005, a custodian found Mulgrew – a low-ranking union official at the time – and a female co-worker having sex in a school woodshop, the New York Post reports.

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The alleged affair is mentioned as part of a “rambling 73-page” lawsuit filed on behalf of a 10-year math teacher who claims he is “being ‘targeted’ for termination because an assistant principal gave him his first ‘unsatisfactory’ rating last December,” the Post reports.

“The lawsuit alleges that the city used the (Mulgrew) incident to blackmail the union into making labor concessions,” reports NYDailyNews.com. The newspaper did not elaborate on how the supposed union concessions affected the teacher who filed the lawsuit.

Based on the lawsuit, our presumption is that one of those concessions was the ability to fire teachers with poor evaluations.

So is this story of sex and blackmail a credible bombshell, or just some fantasy to increase interest in a nutty lawsuit?

That’s difficult to say, but the New York Post interviewed “several former (school) staffers” who had heard rumors of the alleged affair and raised concerns.

One of the staffers claims that Mulgrew’s alleged mistress went from being a nobody to well-paid UFT official after the incident supposedly occurred.

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“The sex thing, it’s between them and nobody’s business,” the staffer told the Post. “The thing that upsets me is the patronage job to (the woman) – rewarding her with a high-paying job with my union dues.”

“No one ever heard of this woman until Mulgrew brought her on board,” a longtime UFT representative told the Post. “She had no union credentials.”

For us, that’s what makes this story interesting. If Mulgrew engaged in “risky business” with a co-worker and then rewarded her with a high-paying union gig as these sources allege, UFT members deserve to know.