A union rally inside a Brooklyn public school featuring Mayor de Blasio violated city regulations because such partisan activities are strictly prohibited in school buildings, critics charged Tuesday.
One former top Department of Education official said he could not recall a private union ever being allowed to hold a meeting on school property, which is what the Communication Workers of America was allowed to do Monday night at PS 66 in Canarsie.
“I haven’t heard anything like that,” the ex-official said. “It does sound unusual.”
DOE regulations prohibit the use of school buildings for “commercial” purposes. Only civic and community events are allowed.
But Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña refused to say if the CWA rally — intended to pressure Cablevision to allow its employees to unionize — met the criteria.
“I’m not even going to answer that,” Farina told The Post after visiting PS 154 in The Bronx.
City Hall referred questions about the CWA event to the DOE, where school officials refused to say who gave the go-ahead.
Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union, a frequent DOE critic, called the nexus between the union and the school space a “clear” violation of regulations.
“Something like this has never happened,” she said. “No private-sector union has been allowed to hold a political meeting in a New York City public-school building. It’s a clear conflict of interest and a violation of the city rules. I’m just shocked.”
The mayor’s public schedule indicated he was attending a CWA event Monday night in Brooklyn, but it didn’t disclose the location or the purpose. Additional, the public and press were barred from the CWA rally.
The CWA, one of the first unions to back de Blasio when he ran for City Hall, has been locked in a legal battle with Cablevision since 2012, when 280 Brooklyn technicians voted to unionize.
The dispute is now before the National Relations Board.
City rules forbid “political events, activities or meetings including those conducted on behalf of an elected official” in a public school. The rules say that permits are granted for civic events but that such meetings “shall be non-exclusive and open to the general public.”
The public and press were barred from the CWA rally.
Some parents said the meeting didn’t pass the smell test.
“I don’t know about it being closed to the public — that’s one issue. The private aspect of that is questionable. The barring of the press is questionable, too. I’ve never heard of a union barring the press from its rally,” said Tony Dandridge, president of District 18’s Communication Education Council, who has a child that attends PS 66.