Prior to his current position, Michael was elected vice president for career and technical education (CTE) high schools in 2005 and became the union’s chief operating officer in 2008.
He attended Roman Catholic schools; and he graduated from the City University of New York system (College of Staten Island) with a BA in English literature and a minor in psychology.
We do a lot of that now and that’s what we need to do more of, to help the schools that are struggling and to figure out ways the UFT can support and help them.”[8][2] On April 15, 2010, the United Federation of Teachers, Mulgrew, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an agreement to close temporary reassignment centers (TRCs), also known as "rubber rooms," where the Department of Education sent teachers and other employees who were being investigated or going through a hearing process.
[9] Mulgrew, the Executive Vice Chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, a consortium of all New York City public employee labor unions, advanced a plan that would move UFT retirees and other retired New York City workers from Medicare into a new, privately run Medicare Advantage plan and removing retirees access to Traditional Medicare and implemented copays on all their tests and visits to the doctor or lab.
[14] In 2024, the UFT joined Staten Island in a lawsuit to block congestion pricing in lower Manhattan.