Arbitrate contract: livid PBA

THE NYPD’S biggest union is fed up with trying to negotiate a new contract with the city and says the only option now is going to arbitration.

After months of stalled talks, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association ripped the de Blasio administration Sunday for “Draconian givebacks” in its latest offer, including “dramatic increases in out of-pocket health benefit costs” and removing the PBA Annuity Fund for current and future members.

“The city’s repeated bad-faith proposals made a mockery of the negotiation process and were an insult to New York City police officers, who are already grossly underpaid in comparison to police officers in other departments locally and across the country,” PBA President Patrick Lynch (inset) said in a statement.

The union and the city are fighting over a two-year contract spanning from last Aug. 1 through July 31, 2019.

“We received the paperwork and are reviewing,” Freddi Goldstein, a City Hall spokeswoman, said about the PBA’s request.

If binding arbitration is granted by the state Public Employment Relations Board, a panel of city- and PBA-appointed arbitrators will make the final contract decision, which typically takes at least a year to make.

Although Lynch has repeatedly pushed for binding arbitration during his tenure, he was furious with the outcome of the last contract arbitration case, in 2015, which gave members a 1% raise a year.

Lynch claimed that state arbitrator Howard Edelman threw the PBA under the bus in exchange for more business from the city.

About 1,000 cops protested outside Edelman’s Upper East Side home in November 2015, and the union refused to pay his bill.

In response, 27 arbitrators wrote to the Public Employment Relations Board asking to be taken off any future PBA contract talks. CITY Correction Department authorities are investigating a team of five jail officers who allegedly attacked an inmate as he dunked cookies in milk inside his Brooklyn cell.

“I wasn’t a threat,” Kemar Daley, 27, told the Daily News during a jailhouse interview Sunday.

Daley says that at least two of the officers choked him as others punched him in the face and upper body while his hands were restrained in a plastic zip tie.

The assault occurred inside his sixth-floor cell at the Brooklyn Detention Complex on March 16, according to an internal Correction Department record of the event.

He suffered a fracture over his right eye, severe bruises on his wrists and a right elbow sprain.

He also has difficulty swallowing since the incident.

“We take this claim seriously and are investigating,” said Correction Department spokesman Peter Thorne.

Daley, who is accused of attacking police officers who came to arrest him on a probation violation tied to a robbery charge, believes the beatdown was triggered by a personal question he asked a captain.

“What’s that up on your head?” Daley says he asked the captain, referring to multiple bumps the officer has on his head. The captain was not amused. “You think that’s funny?” the captain responded, according to Daley.

Moments later, Daley’s cell door was opened and the team of officers began to attack, the inmate alleges.

The officers then dragged him to an elevator and brought him to the eighth floor, where he was slammed onto a metal table, according to his account.

None of the incident was captured on video surveillance. Department cameras do not point into jail cells or other private areas like bathrooms. A camera in the elevator was apparently broken at the time.

Daley says he did not mean to offend the jail captain.

The conversation began when the supervisor asked Daley about a scar he has on the right side of his face stretching from his nose to his ear. He was cut by another inmate during a stint at Rikers Island two years ago.

As for his current case, the construction worker from Brooklyn has been in jail since Feb. 13.

He was confronted by cops after blowing off required check-ins with his probation officer. Daley says he was stuck upstate helping his pregnant fiancée, who was injured in a car accident.

When he returned to Brooklyn, he got into a fight with six police officers who confronted him inside his Brownsville apartment. Daley says the incident became physical after one of the officers put his fiancée against a wall to restrain her.

“That’s what a man does, protects his family,” Daley said.

An officer fatally shot the family dog, Brownie, a 1-year-old pit bull, during the confrontation.

“I raised Brownie since he was a puppy,” Daley said, noting he is still grieving over the dog’s death.