UFT Proles and Goldman Sachs
Over at Edwize, United Federation of Teachers vice president Leo Casey stands up to The Man, detailing the union’s support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters in a post titled “The One Percent and Us. By “us” he means the taxpaying public, not the UFT, though the latter has a closer relationship to the One Percent than it lets on.
Last August I noted UFT’s $54.5 million mortgage financing deal, and directed readers to a 2002 New York Times article headlined “City Teachers’ Union Gives a Lesson in Real Estate.”
But Casey’s timing is impeccable. His Tom Joad sermon comes the same day as this press release from Fitch Ratings, concerning Goldman Sachs’ 2010 commercial mortgage pass-through certificates. The statement notes the performance of the underlying collateral pool associated with the certificates and informs us:
The largest loan of the pool (10.1%) is secured by a 399,935 square feet (SF) class B office property in the Financial District submarket of Manhattan, NY. The property is 100% occupied by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) under a long-term lease which expires in August 2034. UFT also holds 9.9% ownership interest in the building. The loan is structured with a letter of credit (LOC) which can be drawn upon to cover debt service shortfalls.
Of course, UFT is not responsible for Goldman Sachs’ investment strategy, and I’m sure the union would prefer not to be contributing to the firm’s bottom line, or even to its financial stability. Yet UFT is big business, and it will take more than a few sandwiches delivered to protesters to alter that image.
