Independent! Disingenuous! Effective!

It’s not good enough to willingly give unions 4 percent raises and then come back with the argument that they were somehow forced to do the same for managers:

A little before 5 p.m. on Friday, when much of the City Hall press corps was headed home for the weekend, the Bloomberg administration disclosed the raises — 4 percent retroactive to March 3, 2008, and another 4 percent raise effective this past March 3.

Senior aides to the mayor stand to gain the most. Deputy mayors, for example, will receive raises of more than $15,000. The salary of Patricia E. Harris, the first deputy mayor, will rise to $245,760, up from $227,219. Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations, will make $212,614, up from $196, 574. The mayor’s press secretary, Stu Loeser, will earn $200,096, up from $185,000. The mayor himself takes a $1-a-year salary.

Aides to the mayor said the increases were long overdue. Traditionally, City Hall staff members, ranging from lawyers to secretaries, have received the same raises as members of District Council 37, the city’s biggest municipal labor union. Last fall, the mayor gave the union workers back-to-back 4 percent raises, but withheld raises from managers because of the souring economy.

Thompson should have said something along the lines of anyone can placate the unions with 4 percent raises in an economic downturn — we really need Bloomberg for that?