Opinion

Labor’s death wish

Organized labor joined the Wall Street Occupiers yesterday, milling about Downtown, snarling rush-hour traffic and fundamentally working against the unionists’ long-term best interests.

It was no doubt a pleasant way to spend a glorious autumn afternoon. But even as the demonstrators were targeting Wall Street and other financial firms for their “corporate greed,” City Hall was getting set to trim its budget sails — chopping some $500 million through this year and $2 billion more in Fiscal 2013.

Why the cuts?

In large part, because — as Budget Director Mark Page put it — “the outlook for the economy, as evidenced by the chaotic stock market and other indicators, has become increasingly uncertain.”

Seems Wall Street and other local financial firms — that is, the part of the economy smack in the protesters’ crosshairs — aren’t strong enough to pump out sufficient tax revenues to keep the city afloat.

Thus, Mayor Bloomberg has ordered immediate cuts at every city agency — and this time that will include even the NYPD.

The entire municipal workforce (the folks represented by the very unions that put on such a show yesterday) might want to prepare for … layoffs.

So why, pray tell, would labor want to further weaken those companies?

These firms, after all, are footing the bill for public-sector salaries and helping keep folks employed.

And it’s not just municipal jobs and salaries that Wall Street makes possible: Financial firms help manage some $120 billion in city-employee pension funds — including $72 billion in equities.

Sap the resources of companies in which labor’s funds are invested and you lower their value. The unions’ own funds, in other words, will be worth less.

Explain to us, again, how that helps union members …

Already, as The Post’s Josh Margolin reports today, officials are thinking of lowering projections for pension-fund investment returns, from 8 percent to 7 percent — suggesting the funds’ growth may be slower than hoped for.

The city has to kick in more from its own coffers to shore up those funds — possibly as much as $1.4 billion a year, sources say. And that will also mean less money available for municipal employees.

Ah, say the unionists: There’s always the “millionaires’ tax” to make up the difference — never mind that raising taxes on anyone in a recession is always a bad idea.

And never mind that giving New York’s precarious financial sector an extra-hard squeeze would be doubly destructive.

We don’t expect the thoroughly unserious Occupiers to understand any of this.

The unions should know better.