The fund is a charity set up for survivors of uniformed workers who died in the attacks on Sept. 11.

And the unions representing uniformed workers have rarely made much of a common front with the nonuniformed ones.

The firefighters have historically received the same wage increase as other uniformed workers.

If uniformed and education workers were excluded, the savings would be about $12 million a day, officials said.

The ranks of uniformed workers would not be indicated.

Of the 12,500 employees in the department, 7,200 are uniformed workers.

Even some who have raised money for the uniformed workers are uncomfortable with a perception that grief has a caste system.

Also, uniformed workers fill thousands of jobs that could be performed more efficiently by civilians.

In 1978, the department had 10,391 uniformed workers who fought 119,000 fires and made 365,000 inspections.

Ten years later, the department had 12,039 uniformed workers who handled 91,890 fires and made 363,323 inspections.