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ALBANY — Last in, old hat.
The fight over teacher job protections known as “last in, first out” stretches back more than 70 years — when none other than celebrated Mayor Fiorello La Guardia led the anti-LIFO charge, The Post has found.
State legislative archives in Albany reveal the hotly debated, based-on-seniority layoff law was almost as controversial before its passage in April 1940 as it is today, when Mayor Bloomberg is leading a statewide repeal campaign.
Arguments in the battle over the law’s approval by a Democratic Gov. Herbert Lehman and a Republican-run Legislature also sound very familiar.
“It is often desirable to retain the services of younger teachers when there is to be a layoff,” La Guardia, a foe of public-employee unions, wrote in a letter to Lehman urging a veto.
Decades later, Mayor Bloomberg has argued: “To lose the best and keep some who aren’t carrying their weight is just a travesty.”
In 1940, the New York State Teachers Association — the precursor to New York State United Teachers — backed the legislation requiring school districts to target the teachers of “least seniority” during layoffs.
On the other side were reform groups, the city Board of Education and La Guardia.
“The bill is concerned entirely with the continued employment of the individuals and not with the needs and the best interests of the school children,” the board then argued.
Nonetheless, Lehman signed LIFO into law on April 25, 1940. Since then, the law has only been strengthened.
The most sweeping change came amid the city’s financial crisis in 1976 as Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey — once again, over Board of Education objections — approved new union-backed seniority protections to help veteran teachers weather a historic wave of layoffs.