New York Unions’ Snow Job: Mayor Calls Storm Slow-Go ‘Unacceptable’

Despite denials from the New York department of sanitation, accusations of purposeful sabotage in the city's clean-up of the day-after-Christmas blizzard continue to fly. On Wednesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the city's response "unacceptable" pledged to pursue a criminal investigation after workers accused union leaders of trying to slow the snow removal.

Dan Halloran, a city councilman, says he was approached by a number of city employees unhappy with the so-called "go-slow" protest mounted by some of their colleagues. According to Halloran, the workers claimed that some managers who had been demoted to save money wanted to "send a message" to Mayor Bloomberg.  In retaliation for city budget cuts, sanitation workers deliberately slowed the snow clean-up efforts, raising their plows to avoid cleaning snow-filled streets and skipping who areas on their routes.

The Guardian reports:

"These supervisors gave ploughers the green light to not tackle the storm aggressively," Mr Halloran told The Daily Telegraph. "They were told 'take your time and don't rush'.

"They were not going to let the Bloomberg administration get the benefit of their hard work after hundreds of supervisors lost their jobs and 100 were reduced in rank and had their salaries cut."

Cuts were made to the department as part of Mr Bloomberg's attempt to reduce the city's $2 billion (£1.2 billion) budget deficit. About 10,000 city workers are expected to be sacked over the next 18 months.

The "whistleblowers" -- three sanitation workers and two supervisors -- also expressed anger over the fact that some of their homes remained snowed in.  "If they missed a street, don't worry about it. It would be okay because no one would be on top of them," Halloran said.

Despite Halloran's allegations, the sanitation department continues to deny that there were any "organized or wildcat actions being taken" by workers or supervisors.  But questions remain, including why the city did not step up snow-removal enforcement until Sunday morning.  "The proof is in the pudding," he said. "The storm last year had a higher snowfall accumulation and we had no idea it was coming. Within 24 hours, all of the primary and secondary streets were cleaned up."