Union excesses don’t seem to have dampened City Comptroller John Liu’s drive to do labor’s bidding.
As The Post reported Tuesday, Liu helped steer a $150 million police pension-fund investment away from The Blackstone Group after an executive there rattled Liu’s union pals.
The exec’s crime? Having the nerve to state the obvious: Public-employee benefits are choking taxpayers.
Liu’s spokesman says his boss’ recommendation against Blackstone wasn’t based on the union-riling remark.
But Liu, who owes his job in fair part to the support of the union-front Working Families Party, also published an utterly ridiculous report this month claiming that public employees get paid less — 17 percent less, on average, he says — than private-sector workers.
Bet the unions just loved that misleading little piece of propaganda.
Fact is, even Liu admits that city staffers lacking college degrees make far more than their real-world cohorts. And while public employees with post-grad degrees appear to earn less, it’s because Wall Street pay skews the comparison.
Liu muddied matters further by unfairly contrasting highly educated city employees, mostly teachers, to highly educated private workers (bankers, surgeons, lawyers and other professionals).
And remember, regular clock-time for city government generally runs just 35 hours a week; private-sector workers often toil for twice as long.
There’s more: Liu’s report glosses over key pension and benefit differences. He considers public pensions and private 401(k) plans essentially comparable, for example — even though the former are taxpayer-guaranteed while the latter bear huge market risks.
The truth? Most city staffers have pay deals that private workers would die for.
Liu did New Yorkers a huge disservice by not saying so — but then, his union pals must be pleased as punch.