NYC Sanitation Union, Deliberately Held Up Plowing The Streets

[CJS3]

However, to blame the union in NYC for something the supervisors ordered is not fair either.......... My point was and still is most liberals blame the unions....................  Let's all work together and get off this blame the working man kick and fix our problems.
Pecos

That's like saying the guards at the NAZI concentration camps shouldn't be blamed for what they were ordered to do............The unions ARE the liberals. Look at their leadership and their political objectives................If the "working man" had actually been working, we wouldn't be talking about this at all.

[Pecos Bill]

That's like saying the guards at the NAZI concentration camps shouldn't be blamed for what they were ordered to do............The unions ARE the liberals. Look at their leadership and their political objectives................If the "working man" had actually been working, we wouldn't be talking about this at all.

If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.

Pecos

[bjtraz]

If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.

Pecos

So your saying that "a newborn baby died, an elderly woman died, as ambulances could not get to them. 45,000, 911 calls took hours to get ambulances to, some EMT workers had to hike a couple blocks due to unplowed streets." is not a SAFETY issue?!?

Brian

[MikeBjerum]

The number one issue that these supervisors are going to need to answer for is "Why was a plow truck assigned to each emergency vehicle in the city?"  From my years of serving as a lowly EMT, to supervising the ambulance service, to teaching many levels of emergency response, to overseeing special rescue teams in a multi-county setting, of the list of "first things" was assuring that there was always plow equipment ready to escort emergency response equipment and personel.

The task of assigning plow equipment came right behind items like do we have employees that are trained and ready, do we have equipped vehicles, do we have radios, do we have a dispatch system, do we understand everyone's service area and chain of command, can we get help to those in need 99.9% of the time?

This investigation will resemble an onion:  First layer will be if the procedures were in place; who dropped the ball on setting up or activating the procedures; who hindered the procedures; if things weren't in place, why was the issue addressed when the first emergency response failed; and did frontline employees act on their own to slow down or fail to act to their capacity even if not told by supervisor?  This is only a partial list, but you can easily see the depth.

The mayor was right to take the heat as a local official unlike what we saw with Katrina and the buck passing.  I give him a huge thumbs up and initial support for that step.  His future and how history treats him will be revealed by #1. How he digs into the issues and makes corrections, and #2. What is revealed as his or his administrations mistakes in the past.  If reports and inspections showed that "his" response forces were ready it will fall just to how he handles this moving forward.

The biggest issue that I see and fear is that this is what has been mentioned here:  The union has too much power over its workers and the possibility of organized crime being deeply entrenched in the supervision positions.  Investigations like this in a city like New York is causing ulcers for the Mayor's security team I'm sure.

No matter what is found in the investigations I see some supervisors and/or plow drivers facing endangerment charges for sure, possible manslaughter, and maybe even low levels of murder.  I hope the MSM doesn't sweep this under the carpet like the workers that abandoned their posts during Katrina (what ever happened to those bus drivers and emergency workers that parked their vehicles and fled while citizens drown).  So much more fun to rip leaders, responsible or not, than to go after the true problem.

[tombogan03884]

And the result will be half a dozen people who just did what their paychecks demanded will get screwed and those who were truly responsible will get the "Rangel" treatment.
That's how it works.
Go forth my crony and sin get caught no more

[Sponsor]

[twyacht]

They kept, (not all, but some), their plows higher than they could have, so they could do it two,three times. Padding checks for the OT.

It's the same mindset that the dope smoking drinking Chrysler union workers, that got busted, have... We're good, I'll punch my time card, and "F" the rest.

Just like the SUV, and tow truck operator......I get $48.00 an hour, hazard pay, OT,  double-time if over a given shift allotment, bill the city, and I'll plow your side street when I get there....After lunch,.....

Granted, the citizens could have shoveled themselves out, but I saw the Brooklyn locals, cry out: " why do "I" have to shovel".....

Won't even reference the type of "hood" it was,....

I got's mine,....

[tombogan03884]

Truth is that the city dwellers are getting exactly what they deserve. They allowed it to happen, and they allow it to continue. As long as they get their welfare, and subsidized housing, rent controlled Apt's and the other little scams that 80% have going on they will do no more than bitch when their ox gets gored.

[Timothy]

Sad thing here is that they talked about this storm for a week before it got to NY and New England.  Boston has to deal with this sort of thing every year.  Who's bitching up there?  Hartord?  Albany?  Providence?  I've not heard of any....

Everyone fails the test in this one!

[Pathfinder]

To be a supervisor in the NYC unions you must first come up through the ranks. Thus, by the time you get to be a supervisor, you are already deeply in bed with the union leadership, and will do their bidding otherwise the union will shut you down.

In Chicago, one of the great abominations was McCormick Place - the city's huge trade show facility. There, if you were a vendor at a trade show, and unknowingly plugged in a display, the union workers would raise a ruckus. There was little they could actually do to you, so, according to the rules in the contract you signed to show there, a union electrician would walk over, unplug your display, charge you something on the other of $500 to do that, then walk away. Your booth just went to the bottom of the "get hooked up" list, and if you were lucky you might actually get hooked up before the show ended.

Of course, slipping the individual electrician a $100 would do wonders for getting hooked up before the show started.

The city was and is in bed with the unions, and they run the town and the county for that matter. That is why the electrical codes in the county still require EMT conduit for wiring, and many places still forbid PVC waste pipe or PEX for supply lines.

The role of unions in the big cities especially is nasty, vile and disgustingly venal and counter-freedom. They served a purpose at one time (think coal miners) and still do when the bosses get too uppity. But in general, they wield too much power and serve only their own short-sighted interests. If you disagree, fine. But consider why the American automobile industry is in such sad shape. Union workers making $42 an hour pretty much made the cars too expensive and anti-competitive practices resulted in crap cars that were clearly inferior to the imports.

[twyacht]

Maybe buying booze, and staying warm, as a Union Employee, helped.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK

Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses

By REUVEN BLAU and BRAD HAMILTON
Last Updated: 9:19 AM, January 2, 2011
Posted: 2:10 AM, January 2, 2011
EXCLUSIVE

Instead of plowing, they got plowed.

A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.

The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.
The four remained in the idling sedan until morning -- then told their bosses they could do nothing about the blizzard because they had run out of gas, one witness said.

"They just sat in their car all night with the heat running," the witness said.


MICHAEL GOODWIN: EMPEROR MIKE'S SNOW BLINDNESS

Customers who saw the group buying beer at the Ocean Mini Mart at 3917 18th Ave. in Kensington shouted at the workers.

"They were saying, 'How can you do this? You should be outside!' " a witness told The Post.

But the Sanitation team was unmoved.

"One guy said, 'Don't worry about it. We know what we're doing,' " the witness recalled.

A block from the deli, six riders remained on the snow-stalled bus all night.

The supervisors had shown up at the deli near Ocean Parkway at 8 p.m. when a smiling, uniformed Sanitation honcho bought a six-pack of Heineken Light, the witnesses said. About 30 minutes later, another worker from the group bought a six-pack of Corona Light.

Later, they ducked inside their car and hunkered down.

"I saw them drinking, but I'm not sure what it was," said a witness who lives in the area.

In the morning, the four men returned to the deli, where they were heard telling their bosses over the phone that their car had run out of gas.

"This guy was on his cell and said, 'We're out of fuel,' " a witness said.

Department of Investigation Assistant Commissioner Keith Schwam said "we're looking into what happened."

The DOI is also investigating whether Sanitation workers contributed to the chaos with an organized slowdown.

Yesterday, city officials claimed every street in the city had seen a plow and said garbage pickups would resume tomorrow, starting with street-corner cans and, possibly, residential trash.

Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK#ixzz19vi7XTvw

****

Sure am glad unions are up to the challenge.