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by MICHAEL SAUL
Police and firefighters have asked a high-level mediator - President Bush - to wade into their increasingly bitter contract battle with City Hall.
Union leaders fighting for better pay released their letter to the White House yesterday at the World Trade Center site, a week before the Republican National Convention is set to roll into midtown.
"We are taking the unusual measure of writing to you to inform you of our predicament and to make a personal appeal for your help and support in the effort to correct what has become a perennial injustice," leaders wrote in an Aug. 17 letter.
They warned that they would continue street picketing during the convention unless there is dramatic progress in their stalled talks. Police and firefighters have been working without a contract for two years.
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius had no comment on whether the President would get involved.
"We encourage all parties to come to an agreement on this matter," Lisaius said.
Mayor Bloomberg said it would be "inappropriate" for the federal government to intervene.
"The federal government, I'm sure, would never have a conversation with the city over that," Bloomberg said.
No one from the White House or the Bush campaign has lobbied anyone at City Hall about the labor dispute, Bloomberg press secretary Ed Skyler said.
Meanwhile, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association also is poised to sue the city today over charges that cops were threatened with arrest last week during an early-morning protest at Bloomberg's upper East Side townhouse.
With Lisa L. Colangelo
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