The NYPD's rank-and-file union is distributing fliers claiming that officers in New York City are paid less than their counterparts in other cities because they are more racially diverse.
The Police Benevolent Association is mailing the fliers to 35,000 households in Brooklyn, Manhatttan and Queens and calls on Mayor de Blasio's administration to end income inequality in the department.
"When NYC cops all looked like this, they were the highest paid force in the country," one of fliers with a photo of all-white uniformed police officers reads.
"Now that NYC cops look like this, we are among the lowest paid police officers in the country," another flier that shows minority police officers reads.
The fliers began hitting mailboxes on Tuesday when politicians across the country are speaking on the income gap between men and women as part of Equal Pay Day.
PBA president Patrick Lynch said in a statement that the mayor needs to negotiate a new contract with officers to alleviate the growing wage gap between the NYPD and other departments that has forced some cops to move out of the communities where they work.
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"He needs to look at the injustice that's happening in his own police department because, right now, we can't afford to live in many of the communities we patrol," Lynch said. "We’ve been talking to the Mayor for two years, so when he says his door is always open to negotiate a contract, he means as long as we are willing to accept an offer that will cause us to fall farther behind the pay of other professional police officers."
The mayor's office told NBC 4 New York that despite the PBA's claims, they've offered to work with the union to broker a contract.
“Our door has always been – and continues to be – open to the PBA to negotiate a long-term contract, as we’ve done with nearly the entire City workforce to date,” Mayor de Blasio's office said in a statement.
The mayor's office also says that with salaries starting at more than $67,000, NYPD officers make more than many area municipalities.
The PBA has been critical of the de Blasio administration. In a recent survey, 96 percent of PBA members had an unfavorable view of de Blasio.
