Mayor Suarez, Elected on a Promise of Higher Wages, Sues to Block a $10,000 Bonus for Teaching Aides Earning $32,000

MIAMI — Mayor Suarez, who ran and won on the proposition that the city's workers deserve more money, went to court this week to prevent some of the city's lowest-paid school workers from receiving some, on the grounds that the money had been approved by the wrong process.

The measure in question, passed by the City Council in July with the teachers' union behind it, would hand a one-time $10,000 bonus to classroom aides who currently earn as little as $32,000 a year. The mayor's office says the bonus is 'additional compensation,' additional compensation is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining under state law, and a legislative body cannot simply vote to give workers something the mayor would otherwise have to negotiate giving them.

The council had the votes to override a veto. The mayor, recognizing this, did not veto it; he allowed it to become law and then asked a judge to stop it, which the council speaker described as suing your way around a vote you knew you would lose. The bonus would cost the city roughly $325 million, a number the mayor's office mentions, and the aides' salaries are roughly $32,000, a number the council mentions.

Supporters of Mayor Suarez said that defending the bargaining process protects workers in the long run, a line the aides are welcome to frame. Opponents said a mayor whose entire brand is raising wages had found, on his first opportunity, a procedural reason not to. The Press's labor desk notes that 'protecting collective bargaining' and 'blocking a raise' are the same lawsuit, and that which one it is depends on which party's mayor filed it.

"We support the aides," said one mayoral spokesman. "We object to the money."

At press time the oversized ceremonial check remained on its easel in a school hallway, sealed with a court stamp and wrapped in caution tape, at child height.