Slow NYC Cleanup Is Union Protest: Report

If this proves true, there's going to be a lot of outraged New Yorkers: The New York Post reports that Sanitation Department bosses ordered workers to slow down snow cleanup as a budget protest. Among the tactics: keeping plow blades high and skipping some streets entirely, says the Post. It quotes a city councilman who says he met with three department workers who told him of the strategy.

"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," says Councilman Dan Halloran. Scores of emergency vehicles have been unable to get around the city because of the clogged streets, with the most high-profile victim being a newborn who died. (More New York City stories.)