image via @colin_jonesAccording to the NY Post, yes: the reason we spent 3 days without getting our motherfucking streets plowed during the Blizzard of '10 is because the Sanitation Dept was trying to "send a message regarding budget cuts:"
Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.
They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
I mean, WHAT!???
Is this real life!?
Oh, but wait...there's more:
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."
Un.Be.Liev.Able.
I guess Mayor Bloomberg didn't want to mention this little nugget in his very informative press conference the other day??!!
Apparently 400 trash haulers and supervisors have been canned, and as of tomorrow, up to 100 more get "demoted" as part of a budget reduction strategy that was in place.
This also answers the question: will our trash ever get picked up again? Right now it's looking like a solid no.
(via NY Post and a tip from FIPS reader Jake Taylor)