Mayor Bloomberg has dumped a century-old rule giving the city comptroller the power to set wages for some employees, officials said yesterday.
Unions representing carpenters, plumbers and other trades will now have to negotiate, just like other city employee bargaining units.
Previously, those trades were paid according to “prevailing wage” schedules set by Comptroller John Liu and his predecessors.
Bloomberg has told the unions he plans to issue graded titles to the trades people, making them subject to collective bargaining in the future.
“There’s no logical reason why the comptroller’s office should be unilaterally setting wages for city employees,” said mayoral spokeswoman Julie Wood.
Bloomberg’s reform puts workers whose pay had been set by the comptroller in line with the other 97 percent of the city’s employees, Wood said.
Liu’s office declined to comment.