New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken a somewhat different approach to the current round of bargaining between the city and its public unions. Bloomberg has maintained that in order to fund wage and benefit increases, city workers will have to increase their productivity. However, the push on productivity has worsened relations with the unions, and some labor groups have been able to garner impressive raises.
See "Mayor's Demand for Productivity Yields Tension, Then Contracts", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, October 18, 2005