wo things were clear from the day our billionaire mayor took office: He had no intention of negotiating a real raise with the people who work for this city and he was hell-bent on devaluing the job we do. He confirmed this on July 7 when the city took the rare step of filing for binding arbitration of the PBA contract.

Before this, on June 28, the Wednesday before the long Fourth of July weekend, the city made yet another insulting offer. We told the mayor’s negotiator that we’d look at the “offer” and get back to them with a reply or counter offer. On Friday, July 7, just five business days after putting its offer on the table, the city informed reporters, not the union, that they would be filing for impasse.

The city continues to repeat its lie that reducing the starting salary had been the PBA’s idea. The city reduced starting salary in virtually every contract settled last round, starting with the DC-37 agreement.

From day one, Bloomberg’s mantra was that there would be no raises except for those funded by what he calls “productivity improvements” but we know are really givebacks. Throughout all the meetings the city passes off as negotiations, there was never a single proposal that added any value to police officers’ compensation package.

It was all trading time — days off or holidays — for cash. Bloomberg calls working a longer tour for money “productivity.” The PBA calls it overtime, which should be paid for at time and a half.

The Bloomberg administration has long engaged in a systematic devaluation of public employees, especially police officers. Unfortunately, the city has had some success in devaluing the jobs of future employees through the reduction of starting salaries and loss of time off. Now it wants to reduce the value of city jobs further by seeking changes in pension benefits for future hires. And in one contract, it actually got one union to accept a 401-k arrangement that we believe could spell the beginning of the end of the New York City pension system as we know it.

The PBA is standing firm and fighting the city’s unconscionable tactics. Its negotiating tactic — no raise without “productivity improvements” — is an attempt to devalue jobs. Working longer tours and giving up chart days or vacation time means the job is worth less than it was in the previous contract. We intend to fight for increased value and are not interested in trading benefits for cash.

It makes you wonder why this is happening. While the mayor is the first to talk about how important the city worker is to the health of the city, he is clearly fighting to reduce the value of those jobs.

Why? I believe that it’s a clear-cut case of Bloomberg’s lack of appreciation for what municipal employees do. While he smiles and speaks graciously of the importance of municipal work, deep down he harbors the insulting belief that somehow municipal jobs are less valuable than those in the private sector, that city employees somehow don’t work as hard or contribute as much to society. The insult of that attitude is only compounded when the job you do is dangerous, stressful and puts your life at risk.

Although the city can’t exist without the work we do, Bloomberg and company pay only lip service to this fact. How many times have we heard our billionaire mayor say, “I wish I could pay all our city workers more, but we just don’t have the money”? While saying this, he knows he has no intention of granting any real raises unless he’s forced to through binding arbitration, even though he’s sitting on a $5.5 billion surplus. Isn’t that attitude fundamentally dishonest?