The historic rally — it was the first time in memory that the PBA, the United Federation of Teachers and the Uniformed Firefighters Association had co-sponsored such an event — came on June 8, after weeks of careful planning and an energetic get-out-the-troops effort by PBA board members and delegates. Full-page ads in five daily newspapers ran the day before the gathering (click for story on ads), and the turnout did not disappoint.

The politicians were there — Council Speaker Gifford Miller, City Comptroller Bill Thompson and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, to name a few — lending their voices to the union cause. Show business personalities like Alec Baldwin and Steve Buscemi and sports stars also spoke words of support. But the most important people on the scene were New York City’s rank-and-file police officers and other members of the service, who brought their friends and relatives along and gave of their precious free time to demonstrate their solidarity with their brother and sister officers and other city workers.

It was a “spirited showing of labor strength,” reported the New York Times in its following morning’s editions.

“A massive display of strength and outrage,” reported Newsday.

“SHOW US THE MONEY,” demanded the Daily News page-one headline, over a photo of a crowd of off-duty police officers.

“This week the union establishment became a labor movement again,” wrote Jack Newfield in the New York Sun.

When PBA President Pat Lynch took the podium, the gathering was at its peak, as his voice and image was projected on the three Jumbotrons positioned blocks apart along the demonstration’s length. “We’re not asking to be rich like you, Mr. Mayor,” Lynch told the crowd. “All we’re asking for is to make our lives better for our families.”

Then the police union leader cited the credo of 9/11: “Never forget!” He added: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to stand here today to report that they have forgotten.”

A few days later, the Times featured Lynch’s “we-don’t-want-to-be-rich-like-you” quote in an analysis piece, calling it “a sharp knife to insert in Mr. Bloomberg’s weakest spot — his image as a wealthy and impervious Daddy Warbucks unsympathetic to the wage demands of the...patrol officer making $37,000 a year.”

Bloomberg’s personal fortune is estimated at $4.9 billion

The Times analysis went on to describe Lynch as “the police union leader with whom he (Bloomberg) has a deeply frosty relationship.” That’s what you get when you stand up to the mayor on behalf of your membership — no invitations for flights on Mike Bloomberg’s private jet.

Of course, that’s the last thing on his or any police officer’s mind these days. Police officers are concerned about a stubborn and unfair city labor relations policy that has defied logic and equity by clinging to the lock-step, one-size-fits-all cop-out known as “pattern bargaining.” As the newspaper ads the PBA ran expressed it, these crucial public servants should at least be paid “what’s fair. Surrounding municipalities pay far more and are less expensive to live in. No wonder New York City is losing its police officers in record numbers.”

“I’m here to get a pay raise because we’re worth it,” Felicia Montgomery, PBA delegate from Transit District 12, told reporters.

Actor Buscemi echoed this sentiment: “I think it’s ridiculous that the greatest city in the world can’t afford to pay its greatest workers. You should be paid what you’re worth.”