Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pushing for a major overhaul for city employees, civil service workers and the pension system, which has been backbone of retirement for those two groups for generations.

"We have the best workforce in the world, but the civil service is so antiquated that it prevents them from performing up to their abilities, costs taxpayers millions of dollars and unnecessary expenditures, and prevents us from retaining and promoting our best workers," said Bloomberg. The city recently announced a new Workforce Reform Task Force that Bloomberg said is designed to "improve the civil service system."

Some of the suggestions made in the Task Force's 23-point plan include establishing merit pay, removing the State Civil Service Commission and rewarding "high-performing" civil servants. He saved his most aggressive attack for the pension system – a major asset for many workers in their retirement years.

"The only way to protect pensions for our city workers – including our police officers, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers and correction officers – is to reform the system so we can afford it, and at the same time afford the vital services that New Yorkers want and depend on," Bloomberg said during the State of the City address.

Lillian Roberts, president of DC 37, the largest public employee union in the city, sees this as the first step from last week's State of the City address to attack public employees and have them take the brunt of the city's budget cuts.

"Mayor Bloomberg chose to take the low road in his State of the City address, attacking city workers and the modest $17,000 per year pensions they've acquired after making contributions during decades of dedicated service and sacrifice," said Roberts in her statement.

Former Comptroller Bill Thompson cautioned the administration against taking too much of a hard line against the unions and city employees. "The city needs to work with the stakeholders and the unions," he said.

But Bloomberg said last week that he would not sign a contract with salary increases unless they were "accompanied by reforms in benefit packages that produce the savings we need to continue making investments in our future and protect vital services." Roberts believes Bloomberg is willfully looking at the wrong source of blame.

"The city's budget crisis is not the fault of municipal workers and their benefits," Roberts continued. "Rather, the fault lies with the massive fraud and recklessness of Wall Street, and the loss of municipal revenue as the financial sector nearly collapsed in 2008-2009. While the large banks made whole dollar-for-dollar profits for their losses from the financial crash, taxpayers footed the bill, and now, when Wall Street profits are at record highs, municipal budgets are being balanced on the backs of public employees."

Thompson said that potential problems in the pension system could be traced back to the current instability of the stock market which has left pension funds in the most precarious situation since the Great Depression.

But Roberts, who spoke with the AmNews at length on Tuesday, feels that Bloomberg is not looking at the extraordinary market circumstances, and does not see in him a negotiating partner who is really looking to solve the current crisis, instead of working against workers' interests.

"It would be helpful if he would talk to the unions about their ideas," said Roberts. "You heard the same thing we did at the same time. If [Bloomberg] wants to talk, he should be talking with us. Nobody negotiates through the press – that's childish. We don't know what he means – and I don't think he knows what he means. Their plan is to have different payouts for different groups, and I think most of this is smokescreen anyway."

Many of the attacks directed at public pensions don't mention the amount if money said pensions lost due to the economic recession caused by Wall Street. Last year, the Fiscal Policy Institute put out a study that suggested that in order to increase city revenue; Bloomberg could close corporate tax loopholes, reduce stock transfer tax rebates and update the taxation of financial firms, particularly hedge funds.

Citizens' reactions to the city's response to the blizzard brought about a bit of anti-union sentiment in the five boroughs. When asked if the Bloomberg administration was piggybacking off anti-union attitude, Roberts said that she didn't think the majority of the city's individuals put the blame on the union.

"I think he blew it," Roberts said about Bloomberg. "It wasn't the employees. It was how they were being supervised. I think it was a big blunder, and it doesn't belong to the people carrying out the job, but to the people directing them."