Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo are praising a deal reached in the early hours of Thursday morning to rein in public employee pension costs.
But the leader of the largest state labor union accused Cuomo of pursuing a policy of political expediency at the expense of state workers.
The so-called Tier VI pension plan will only affect new hires.
"For years, local governments have struggled to cope with soaring retirement costs, driving up taxes on New York families and small businesses," Cuomo said in a statement issued by his office. "This bold and transformational pension plan is a historic win for New York taxpayers and municipalities that will save more than $80 billion over the next 30 years while preserving retirement security for public workers."
Cuomo said the cost of pensions has increased 650 percent since 2002, and the so-called Tier that failure to address the matter would have led to layoffs of employees as well as tax increases.
Bloomberg called it a huge victory for the city and the state. The city’s costs have risen to $8 billion a year, about five times what they were 10 years ago.
"Skyrocketing pension costs have caused fiscal crises in many cities and counties around New York, cutting into local governments' ability to deliver core services," Bloomberg said in a press release. "That's why mayors and county executives — from both parties, and from every region of the state — came together to support Gov. Cuomo's plan."
CSEA President Danny Donohue accused Cuomo and legislative leaders in both houses of selling out workers in a deal for legislative redistricting lines.
"Tier VI shoved down the throat of legislators fixated on their own self-preservation will be devastating to 99 percent of New Yorkers," Donohue said in a statement. "This deal is about politicians standing with the 1 percent — the wealthiest New Yorkers — to give them a better break while telling nurses, bus drivers, teachers, secretaries and laborers to put up and shut up."
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