Mamdani does right in fighting City Council teacher-aide giveaway

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is doing the right thing in fighting the City Council’s push to award teaching bonuses outside the collective-bargaining process. The mayor is suing to stop the $10,000 grants to special-education paraprofessionals because they’d set a disastrous precedent.City Council Speaker Julie Menin argues the move would save the city money on support it’s legally required to give many special-needs kids, but it’s an obvious long-term loser — and open invitation for every public-employee union to get lawmakers to award them gifts so to win union backing at the next election.Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

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We fear that last is why the council voted unanimously for the payment last month, a veto-proof majority that left the mayor no choice but to head to court, arguing that the move violates state labor law.Lawmakers can’t reduce union-worker pay without collective bargaining; letting the council add pay would badly undermine a core mayoral authority.Kudos to Mamdani for eating his campaign promise to support the bonus bill; it’s a sign of good sense that he looked more carefully and thought better.United Federation of Teachers chief Michael Mulgrew is furious, naturally; tough.The UFT inevitably gets almost everything it asks for, anyway.Mamdani’s courage here might even signal a willingness to stand firm in the coming round of contract talks with every city union; he doesn’t owe his office to them, after all.We’ll cross our fingers and hope for yet another pleasant surprise....