Why are public unions allowed to create disasters like the New York City snow removal debacle, just to demand more money from taxpayers?
New York public unions deliberately fouled up the 2010 blizzard cleanup…with union bosses issuing orders to sanitation workers to make as big of a mess of possible of New York City, so that unions could demand more money from taxpayers in the 2011 budget.
The unions decided to punish New York because of budget cuts in 2010, which also included the demotions and firings of bad union workers.
So, the unions stuck it to the people of New York with a work slowage/stoppage that turned New York City into a disaster area.
The end result was a city paralyzed by unplowed streets, garbage piled up, and roads that were unpassable for emergency vehicles.
One informant within the union told the New York Post:
The snitches “didn’t want to be identified because they were afraid of retaliation,” Halloran said. “They were told [by supervisors] to take off routes [and] not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank-and-file.”
Tomorrow, demotions and salary cuts are scheduled for high ranking union members in the Sanitation Department, because of budget cuts.  The unions deliberately sabotaged snow removal efforts to smack New York City in the face for daring to cut union members’ pay in a time of financial crisis.
QUESTION: Can the unions be held criminally responsible for any loss of life and damage to property that occurred because of their work slowage/stoppage efforts?
There seems to be several instances of people having medical troubles, calling 911, and waiting up to 9 hours for emergency teams to get to them because of the blocked roads…which would have been cleared if not for the unions’ work slowage/stoppage scheme.
Can the union bosses who ordered that slowage/stoppage be prosecuted for manslaughter for the people who died but would have reasonably been saved if not for the deliberately blocked streets?
Is there any sort of precedent for this, anywhere, where someone creates a situation where emergency workers cannot do their jobs and a person dies because emergency teams can’t get to him or her?
Is there any sort of law against obstructing/interfering with a rescue effort?
BETTER QUESTION:  Can the Sanitation Department in cities like New York be privatized so that the public unions can be eliminated?  Chicago privatized the meter maids, eliminating that swath of public union workers here.  The parking rates went up, so it was not the most popular move ever, but it did eliminate union jobs by hiring a private company to do what the City once took on by itself.
Why can’t the bulk of a city’s employees be eliminated by hiring private companies to handle those tasks…where the private companies would be motivated by profit to do the best job they can, or risk facing severe financial penalties when something like this New York disaster happens?
Thoughts?
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