Sunday New York got hit with a sure-enough blizzard. I haven’t been in the city proper, but here in the city improper we all got snowed in real good.
Apparently the Right has seized upon the snow-covered city as a means to smear both unions and public employees. Stories generated by Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and the conservative Washington Examiner claim that the city sanitation workers’ union deliberately sabotaged the snow cleanup. The Examiner went so far as to claim that “union thugs” routinely shake down the city for more money and use intimidation to line their pockets. The Post claims that union “bosses” ordered workers to snarl the cleanup to protest budget cuts.
Naturally, the rightie blogosphere is eating it up. And Faux News warns that union thugs soon will be sabotaging snow cleanup in your town.
Note also that the one and only source for this story is one Republican councilman from Queens.
Mayor Bloomberg promises to look into it, but the more likely explanation for why this particular snow was such a pain in the bleep can be found at The Talking Dog.
Among other things– apparently what really snarled up Sunday traffic was that the city didn’t declare a snow emergency and order non-emergency traffic off the street. So, lots of people foolishly tried to drive places in the snow and got stuck, which much complicated plowing and snow removal. See more in New York Times and New York Daily News.