The city’s self-styled “progressive” mayor tried to wipe out the past 50 years of labor advancement by illegally strong-arming the carpenters union during contract negotiations, new court papers charge. Mayor de Blasio’s administration broke a state law called the Triborough Doctrine, which bars a benefits provider from threatening to take certain contract items from union workers in exchange for not striking, said lawyer Robert Stulberg, who represents the city’s District Council of Carpenters. City Hall slashed the sick-leave and retirement benefits for 700 members of the union in November, claiming that the workers
were being overpaid. But the union says the move was nothing more than an attempt at fear-mongering to keep it from striking. The union didn’t strike — although the workers still remain without the benefits. Judge James d’Auguste hinted that he agrees with the union, saying that the city’s move “seems to turn on its head the jurisprudence for labor law of New York for the last half century.” De Blasio administration lawyer John Paul Guyette said the city’s action didn’t violate the labor law.