Lost in the anger over the city’s performance following the December blizzard is the fact that hundreds of city employees worked night and day to get the city back to normal. Sanitation employees worked 12-hour shifts to clear the snow and then overtime again to pick up trash.
They were paid for their efforts, but the exhaustion on the faces of these workers when they returned home after 12 hours of plowing and shoveling snow told the story of their remarkable effort.
This effort was ignored because poor planning by commissioners and city managers left thousands of New Yorkers stranded for days. It is clear the mayor got the message. Last week, when the weather forecast was for less than a foot of snow, the mayor staged a press event carried live by most networks to announce the steps the city was taking.
In the three weeks that have followed the blizzard, the most serious complaint remains unresolved. City Councilman Dan Halloran told the press that sanitation supervisors in northeast Queens called for a work slowdown to protest the mayor’s plan to demote 100 sanitation supervisors. Halloran claimed that sanitation workers and supervisors came to his office to report the alleged slowdown. At first, Halloran refused to reveal the names of the workers who made this charge, but his office later said he was assisting federal investigators looking into whether a slowdown occurred.
In the face of angry denials from some city agency heads, a Halloran aide attempted to soften the accusation that made national news. “We’re not saying it was a union action,” he said. “It was a handful of supervisors who were upset at the administration and they wanted to get back at them for the upcoming demotions.”
So far the only proof of a slowdown, aside from the anonymous complaints, comes from people living in Halloran’s district, who claim they saw snow plows idling. There are other reasons why a plow driver might be standing still beside deliberate slowdown.
There is no denying the blizzard was not handled well, but there is also no denying that hundreds of dedicated city employees worked around the clock to dig this city out.
