Feds eye Sanit slow-down during storm

Sanitation workers purposely took their time when plowing Queens streets, sanitation supervisors and workers who confided in Councilmember Dan Halloran alleged.
“If the supervisors have in fact not done their job, they need to have administrative hearings,” said Halloran.
Halloran told reporters in a conference call on Thursday, December 30, that he had personally spoken to two Department of Transportation (DOT) supervisors and three Department of Sanitation (DOS) workers who told him that sanitation supervisors had told workers to wait for instructions on when and where to plow.
A current sanitation worker who wished to remain anonymous spoke to The Courier and blasted Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. He accused him of failing to understand the scale of the city, coming from Indianapolis.
“The department as a whole would never want to mess up in a snow storm. It’s the only time the sanitation is in the media – we want to shine,” he said.
In some instances, Halloran was told plow drivers parked and waited six to eight hours for orders to plow. The workers and supervisors worked in all areas of Queens, but all live in Halloran’s district, he said.
Keith Mellis, spokesperson for the DOS, said that 100 sanitation supervisors are slated to be demoted to the ranks of sanitation workers. He also said that workers were on the job for 12-hour, sometimes 14-hour, shifts to plow.
“We would not see this dedication if there was labor unrest,” said Mellis.
Halloran was told that the slowdown would “send a message,” protesting the demotions. He met with a U.S. attorney on Tuesday, January 4, who said their office is pursuing a federal investigation into these allegations, said the councilmember’s spokesperson.
Joseph Mannion, president of the sanitation officer’s union, Local 444, denied any intentional slowdown whatsoever. He said he had no sympathy for people who did not do their jobs.
“I’m angry,” said Mannion. “We are humiliated.”
Mannion blamed the deputy mayor for cutting the department’s workforce by attrition, and said that people have been wrongfully pointing fingers at their department.
Furthermore, Halloran was told that 400 workers had called out sick Monday, December 27. He acknowledged that there is typically a spike in sick days used in the holiday season, but asserts that either way it was still a work week.
Mannion called the figure of 10 percent of sanitation workers calling in sick on the Monday following the blizzard “questionable.” He explained that during an emergency situation like the storm, workers cannot call out because of emergency conditions. Instead, if workers could not physically travel to work, they were forced to call in sick or would be listed as absent without leave.
Halloran’s office declined requests to speak with his sources.
A retired supervisor for 14 years in northeast Queens, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Courier that DOS employees “rode with their plows up, didn’t drop salt and foremen didn’t go out into the streets to see what was going on.”
“We never had over 1,000 city buses stranded in all five boroughs. We’ve had worse storms than this,” said the supervisor, who lives in Woodhaven and was a city employee for 27 years.
The supervisor called the alleged slowdown life-threatening.
“This is a disgrace. More than half these guys should be fired and new ones retrained,” he said.
Any “concerted stoppage of work or slowdown by public employees” qualifies as a strike, which is in direct violation of the Taylor Law meant to prohibit public employee union workers from striking.