Weiner, Quinn: Unions can't rule out concessions

The leading Democratic candidates for mayor, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Rep. Anthony Weiner, said Wednesday night that municipal unions must be willing to pitch in with concessions if they hope to see pay raises when they negotiate their expired contracts.

"It doesn't support city workers, who are mostly city residents, if we give more than we can afford," Quinn said during a forum hosted by The Jewish Press, a weekly newspaper, at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center in Brooklyn.

Weiner was more specific in asking for labor sacrifices, saying unionized city workers and retirees should be willing to make an employee contribution for health care costs. He took a swipe at Mayor Michael Bloomberg, under whose watch the contracts expired, saying he's glad Bloomberg didn't try to negotiate new deals and wants "him to leave without breaking things."

Earlier in the day, Comptroller John Liu picked up an endorsement from New York's largest municipal-employee union group, the 121,000-member District Council 37. Liu accepted the nod in front of City Hall and said a Liu administration would negotiate with an eye toward granting the retroactive pay raises for city workers, who have gone nearly four years without contracts.

"It's probably not going to be the entire amount of the retroactivity," Liu said. "But it's not going to be zero, either."

Weiner, sprinkling his statements with Yiddish and Hebrew, enjoyed a warm reception from the audience of 200, mostly from Brooklyn's Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Though three of the last five mayors have been Jewish, Weiner is the only Jewish candidate running this year. He announced his candidacy last week in a comeback attempt from the sexting-and-lying scandal that drove him from Congress.

Asked how and why New Yorkers can trust him, Weiner drew applause when he said he is "not a perfect person," but has "never ever forgotten the people who sent me to those offices," in Congress and City Council.

"I can tell you that every day that I'm lucky enough to be mayor, I'm going to lay down my head late at night thinking about how I can help communities like this; I'm going to get up first thing the next morning thinking about how I can help communities like this, I'm going to work hard every single day, I'm going to fight hard for you," Weiner said.

The candidates faced questions of special concern to the community, including a controversy over city regulation of a controversial circumcision ritual followed by ultra-Orthodox Jews known as metzitzah b'peh.

The Bloomberg administration last year introduced regulations that require informed parental consent for that circumcision method in which the man performing the circumcision uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound. Health officials blamed the practice for a dozen cases of herpes simplex virus since 2000.

Weiner did not state a position on the consent forms. Quinn defended the city's use of them, saying they balance religious freedom and health concerns.

Earlier Wednesday, Liu said he would fund union raises by trimming waste in the budget and hiking taxes on people making more than $500,000. He didn't elaborate on whether he'd be able to protect city services from cuts.