Hizzoner can run to Iowa, but he can’t hide from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
The union representing rank-and-file cops will protest Mayor de Blasio outside a speech he’s set to give in Des Moines 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 arbitration again.
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,” they said.
Austin Finan, a spokesman for de Blasio, said they were “more than fine with their protests and wish them safe travels.”
"Those at the center of our successful efforts to reduce crime to historic lows deserve a fair contract. We're confident mediation will get us there, just like it did last time and just like we've done with nearly the entire city workforce,” he 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 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 effect the future of this city.”
The PBA has previously protested the mayor outside of the Park Slope YMCA, where he routinely works out, and outside Gracie Mansion.
Other groups have also taken to following the mayor on his road trips — advocates for closing Rikers Island once showed up outside a fund-raiser in Florida.