Moscow on the Hudson

Don’t annoy the public-employee unions if you want to keep a job with the City Council: That’s the lesson now-former council budget analyst Brandon West learned after publicly supporting the idea of a state constitutional convention.

As happens every 20 years, New York voters this November will get the chance to call for a “con-con.” Some reformers see it as the best hope for changing the incredibly venal ways of state government.

But the unions are happy with the current swamp, since they wield such great power in it. And they fear that reform might threaten all the power and privileges they’ve had written into law over the years.

Unfortunately for West, he had the temerity to argue for a con-con on an Albany TV show. Shortly afterward, he got the ax.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office denies firing the budget wonk over his con-con presumption. But colleagues say he’s industrious and well-liked.

Dick Dadey of Citizens Union, the most prominent con-con backer, called West’s firing a hit job you’d “expect out of Russia, not out of our city democracy.”

Other factors may have played a role: West is a leader of the reform-minded New Kings Democratic Club — a thorn in the side of Brooklyn Democratic boss Frank Seddio. But super-progressive Mark-Viverito, a Manhattan-based pol who’ll soon be forced off the council by term limits, was more likely doing the unions’ bidding.

Ironically, West wasn’t even crossing City Council policy when he expressed his private views: The council hasn’t weighed in on a constitutional convention.

It’s bad enough that many officeholders treat their staff members as serfs, obliging them to put in unpaid overtime on political work and even the boss’ personal errands. Now the minions can’t even voice their own opinions?

A con-con may not be the answer to New York’s endless corruption, but this incident again proves the reformers right about how squalid local democracy has become.