That’s more like it: Mayor Bloomberg just dropped a bomb on union-owned city Comptroller John Liu.
Bloomberg signed an executive order Wednesday yanking the comptroller’s century-old power to set wages for about 10,000 unionized city employees, including carpenters, electricians and other trades.
It was an odd set-up: 97 percent of city employees engage in collective bargaining for their contracts, but there are 3 percent whose pay scale — the so-called “prevailing wage” — is determined by the comptroller alone.
That arrangement lets politicians like Liu curry favor with labor — his biggest political backers and big-time campaign donors — by offering them preposterous pay hikes year after year. In the last decade alone, the city has lost some $600 million this way.
“There’s no reason why the comptroller should be unilaterally setting wages for city employees,” said a mayoral spokeswoman.
But there’s a very good reason to seize the power now: Liu so badly and baldly abuses the privilege that he got slapped around by a lefty Manhattan judge last year for setting an “absurd” pay scale for city movers 80 percent above the market rate.
This from the guy who’s supposed to be watching out for the city fisc.
Not dancing to the union tune.
That’s only the most egregious example, but it reinforces how unfit Liu is to serve — especially with the FBI investigating his campaign for alleged fund-raising crimes.
So how will the unions take it?
The Metropolitan Labor Committee, a labor umbrella group, spat about the mayor’s “disregard and disrespect” — which means unions are upset to see Liu reined in.
So good work, Mr. Mayor.
But labor leaders are no dummies. They know Liu’s been dead in the water politically for months, yet this very week they were dutifully raising cash for his coffers.
“I think he’s been singled out in a way that’s unfair,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the retail workers’ union, at a Midtown fund-raiser Tuesday.
“Perhaps it has something to do with the important things that the comptroller has been doing for the 99 percent,” he said.
Oh, please. The feds have been on Liu’s tail since before he became comptroller, and have already arrested his former campaign treasurer and a top money-man over alleged fund-raising crimes.
Yes, Liu’s campaign is dripping with evidence of criminality, yet he refuses to step down.
And that’s why Bloomberg’s order (alongside a speedy federal investigation) is the best news we’ve heard in weeks.