Looking Foreward

So far this year winter weather and its problems have not hit our area. The storms that have brought so much grief to the country have gone around us and we have enjoyed a relatively mild winter. Whether this will change in the year to come I don’t know, but for the moment I’ll enjoy not having to shovel snow or endure the frigid breezes that Kansas loves to boast about.

Growing up in the New York City area I remember some of the winter storms of the 1940’s and 50’s that exceeded in depth the storm that is presently shutting the city down. Expectations were not as high and people usually coped with problems, helped their neighbor and survived the problem as best they could. My father was a superintendent with the subway system and I recall the problems he had that required his crews to hand shovel the surface portion of the line so the trains could run. It was a hard and thankless job but that was the way life was and people just endured until things got back to normal.

Today there is an attitude change and people react strongly to anything that upsets their perception of personal comfort and impacts their sense of self importance. So the action of the New York City Sanitation Department during and after last week’s snow storm doesn’t surprise me.

Sanitation Dept. trucks are used to plow snow when necessary and are, in my opinion, a prudent use of resources in a crowded city. But management of this city agency and the sanitation workers union are upset over budgetary constraints in these recessionary times and they ordered their crews to not plow “side streets” because it increases gas usage. They thought their actions would upset citizens, and lead to restoration of funding and it most definitely did upset people, but their plans went awry when someone spilled the beans and the reason for not plowing became apparent.

I believe that unions are an important part of society, but I also believe that the social contract demands equality and denying residents a service they pay for with taxes is an act bordering on criminality. I (hopefully) look forward to termination of management staff and possible decertification of the union. But I’m not holding my breath.