Give ’em an “F’’ for bad money management.
City and state teachers unions have been funneling millions of dollars into a grassroots protest group that has been targeting EpiPen manufacturer Mylan — even though their pension funds are heavily invested in the drugmaker, The Post has learned.
Over the past five years, the United Federation of Teachers, New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers have spent a total of $5.5 million on groups collaborating with a coalition known as the Hedge Clippers, according to records.
The Hedge Clippers, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, spent their Tuesday morning outside billionaire investor John Paulson’s Sixth Avenue office in Midtown, protesting against the EpiPen price-gouging and his ties to the company.
All that would be perfectly fine — if it weren’t for the fact that the New York State Teachers Retirement System pension fund currently has 728,514 shares of Mylan stock.
In addition, the NYS Common Retirement Fund has purchased 1.1 million shares equaling a total of $48.7 million.
And all five of the city’s primary employee pension funds have invested around $110 million in Mylan, including $42 million in stock, according to the comptroller’s office.
So since the teacher unions are deeply invested in the drugmaker, they have basically been hurting themselves by financially supporting the protesters: Mylan’s shares are down 12.6 percent since Aug. 18, while the stock is down more than 20 percent for the year.
Michael Kink, the executive director of Strong Economy for All — which launched Hedge Clippers — is even a UFT employee, according to federal tax and labor records.
He was hired in 2011 to create and lead the outfit. Last year, Kink earned $183,000 as a union “supervisor” — and in each of the last two years he has been one of the 15 highest-paid of nearly 700 UFT employees the union lists on US Department of Labor filings.
A spokesperson for the Hedge Clippers, when reached for comment, said they had no idea that the pension funds were invested in Mylan.
The teacher unions backing the group usually target hedge funds and their roles in prominent issues, such as Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. It wasn’t until more and more people started complaining about Mylan’s ongoing price hikes that they decided to jump into the EpiPen controversy during the first few weeks of August.
Knowing that the city pension funds were in bed with such a controversial drug manufacturer didn’t sit too well with City Comptroller Scott Stringer, whose office manages all five of them.
“It’s unacceptable for a health care company to put life-saving medicine out of people’s reach by jacking up prices,” said Stringer, although he stopped short of saying the city pension funds would divest from Mylan. “The EpiPen debacle has had a steep reputational cost for Mylan. This company should refocus on creating long-term value for all of its investors.”
Mylan has been under intense pressure ever since prices of its emergency-injection treatment started soaring from $100 for a two-pack in 2007 to a whopping $608 today.
Meanwhile, the noose continued to tighten Tuesday on company CEO Heather Bresch, who was called out in a seething letter signed by 20 US senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
The document was sent just one day after the House Oversight Committee ordered Bresch to turn over financial information about the company.
“Mylan’s near monopoly on the epinephrine auto-injector market has allowed you to increase prices well beyond those that are justified by any increase in the costs of manufacturing the EpiPen,” the senators’ letter said. “Some Americans who are unable to afford this cost increase have resorted to carrying expired EpiPens — or carry no EpiPens at all.”
While 19 of the 20 signatures came from Democrats, two who were conspicuously absent from the list were New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. The latter has come under fire for taking $10,000 in campaign contributions from Mylan earlier this year.
A UFT rep said, “Investment decisions by TRS are made over the long term in conjunction with the city comptroller’s office.”
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Rosner