Iowa goes blue – but not for Bill
HIZZONER CAN run to Iowa, but he can’t hide from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
The union representing rankand-file cops will protest Mayor de Blasio outside a speech he’s set to give in Des Moines on Tuesday, the union said, blasting him over police officers’ pay.
“Our members are making this trip to tell progressives in Iowa and across the country about the real Bill de Blasio,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement. “He says he’s a friend of working people, but when it comes to his own employees, he is anti-worker and anti-union.”
The PBA and City Hall have long been locked in contract battles, with the union refusing the initial offers de Blasio made to other uniformed unions and heading into arbitration — and still winding up with a deal that they detested. They eventually reached a retroactive deal with the city in January, which expired over the summer — and have asked to enter mediation.
De Blasio is set to keynote a holiday fund-raiser held by a group called Progress Iowa, but the union argued progressives ought to “take a hard look at his labor record.”
“If he is going to stand up before Iowa voters and union members and promise he's a friend to labor, then he needs to earn it,” the union said.
On NY1’s “Inside City Hall,” de Blasio said he expected the city to reach a deal that was fair for officers and taxpayers, noting an uncertain fiscal future for the city with a federal tax overhaul pending.
“Whatever they want to do in New York or out of, that’s their rights as American citizens,” he said.
“We have dealt very fairly with labor.”
De Blasio also slapped down the idea that his visit to Iowa was testing the waters for a presidential bid, saying he had run for four more years as mayor.
“I’m looking forward to those four years,” he said. “But there’s a lot of work to do outside the boundaries of the five boroughs if we really want to affect the future of this city.”