This is the most disgusting story I’ve ever read. I’m horrified that this occurred. Horrified. A newborn baby died in New York City because some city workers wanted to score a political point against the Mayor.
In the greatest, most technologically advanced city in the world a little baby cried out for help. The baby’s mother dialed 911 for nine hours but nobody came. Nobody came because somebody thought their political games were more important.
The New York Post is reporting:
Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts — a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.
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.
Halloran said he met with three plow workers from the Sanitation Department — and two Department of Transportation supervisors who were on loan — at his office after he was flooded with irate calls from constituents.
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.”
So these union thugs wanted to score points so they didn’t do their job. And guess what happened, people died including a newborn baby that waited ten hours for emergency personnel to show up.
The New York Daily News reports:
A blizzard baby delivered inside the lobby of a snowbound Brooklyn building died after an emergency call of a woman in labor brought no help for nine excruciating hours.
The baby’s mother, a 22-year-old college senior, was recovering Tuesday night at Interfaith Medical Center, where her newborn was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. on Monday. That was 10 hours after the first 911 call from the bloody vestibule on Brooklyn Ave. in Crown Heights.
“No one could get to her. Crown Heights was not plowed, and no medical aid came for hours,” said the student’s mother.
I drove up to New York and unfortunately got caught in the blizzard and I couldn’t believe how bad the roads were on that day and the ensuing days. The roads had dangerous ice patches on them for days and I witnessed several awful accidents, one where a car flipped over. So many people I spoke with said they’d never seen anything like this where the city had just not done anything to help. They said they couldn’t imagine why nothing was being done.
And now that I’ve heard I still can’t imagine that callousness of some who would do something like this. I’m serious when I say the people behind this plot should be arrested for reckless endangerment and callous disregard for life among other charges. I’m truly horrified. A baby died so somebody could make a point about how powerful they were.
Part of me wants to make a point about this is what happens when you have an incestuous relationship between government and unions but I don’t have the patience to think that through right now. It comes down to this -these people knew that people would get hurt and possibly die when they did nothing when the snows came. They knew that and they didn’t care. Their raises were more important. Their political power, their muscle, their seat at the table was more important than the life of that newborn baby.
A baby cried out in the most technologically advanced city in the history of man. But nobody came. Because those who were supposed to didn’t care. And a baby died.
December 31, 2010 at 4:21 am
Horrific. Absolutely horrific.
December 31, 2010 at 4:57 am
I'll make the point about public sector unions for you:
* A public employee is supposed to be a public servant. John 15:12-13 comes to mind here. This is why public employees originally had civil service protections in lieu of the right to strike.
* A union is designed to aggregate power so it can contend against "management" for a share of the spoils. The members aren't servants, but competitors for what is wrongly assumed to be a finite and unchanging set of resources. Instead of being partners who collaborate to create wealth, they are opponents struggling for "their share".
In the case of this tragedy it was clear that the snowplow operators (and their supervisors) ought to have followed the first model – and not the second.
December 31, 2010 at 5:00 am
Hmmm – on further thought, I think John 10:12-13 is a better Scriptural reference for how public employees ought *not* to act (but did).
December 31, 2010 at 9:40 am
I'm a member of a fairly strong and usually responsible union. I totally appreciate the role of unions and I have on most occasions fully supported just strike action. There have been two occasions when circumstances required me to conscientiously object and withhold my participation in irresponsible job action. It's not pleasant when one must take a stand against one's union, which usually means standing against one's colleagues, but the health and well being of those who depend on us must come first.
Unions have to be creative enough to engage management but not put innocent people's lives at risk. In this instant, the union appears to have acted in a manner that led to deadly consequences. They gambled with people's lives, lives which were not theirs to wager. I hope they don't try to shift the blame for their unconscionable action.
December 31, 2010 at 2:23 pm
unions are
December 31, 2010 at 2:29 pm
No, it just won't do. No unions. Unions do not protect workers or the quality of the work; they enrich the union leadership at the expense of the workers, the work, and the American people.
— Mack
December 31, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I was a union member for 30 years. In all that time, neither the International, nor the Local ever recommended we vote for a Republican or an Independant candidate. The Democrat always got the nod. Let's see, now. The Democrat party does not support abortion, they WORSHIP abortion. And they are coming around to worshiping Socialism, too. What these union people did in New York is despicable. But it is only a miniscule comparison to the 53 million babies killed since 1973 with full support of labor unions. Unions pose the greatest threat to the survival of this country as we know it.
December 31, 2010 at 3:35 pm
It isn't unions that pose the greatest threat to the survival of this country, it's the socialist mentality that permeates nearly everything in America. If the unions were to go poof tomorrow, we would still have many simular problems.
December 31, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I am a government employee (state), but do not belong to a union.
I agree this is absolutely shocking and uncalled for behavior on the part of the union. However, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they INTENDED this baby's death or approved of it in any way. My guess is that they assumed not plowing the streets would cause mainly inconvienience, not actual danger to life and limb. However, if they had just stopped to think for more than a few seconds and thought about what effect this might have on people with medical emergencies, elderly people, etc. this would not have happened.
Stupid and supremely selfish stunts like this serve only to further ruin the reputation of ALL government employees and intensify calls for firings/layoffs, cuts in pay and benefits, etc. Ironically, those layoffs and cuts (at least in my experience) usually end up falling on NON-union, lower and mid-level employees simply because they are the easiest to target.
It was one thing to belong to a union back in the "robber baron" days of the 19th and early 20th centuries when they provided the only effective means of standing up to a corrupt and wealthy corporate establishment. Today, unions have BECOME the corrupt and wealthy establishment.
Elaine
December 31, 2010 at 3:54 pm
If the supervisors were ordering this, it sounds like a management action, not a union one
December 31, 2010 at 4:00 pm
If the unions went "poof" tomorrow, the Democrat (Socialist) party would all but go poof with it. Unions are the big base of Democrat politicians. After the "poof", the Repubs and Independants might have 70 seats in the Senate, and 300 in the House, as well as the White House. With those kind of numbers, Socialism might not die, but it might wander into some quicksand. There was an avowed Socialist (and strong unionist) who ran for president every year since about 1928 as a Socialist. In the 48 or 52 election, I forget which, he suddenly stopped running. When asked why, he responded that there was no need for him to run. He said that the Democratic Party had adopted all of his platforms.
December 31, 2010 at 4:39 pm
eternal rest to the poor baby
December 31, 2010 at 4:40 pm
To clarify what I said above… even if the snowplow drivers and/or their union bosses or supervisors didn't INTEND death or bodily harm to anyone, they are still guilty of negligence or recklessness. If they can't be criminally charged at the very least someone ought to sue them for big bux.
Elaine
December 31, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Talk about a "structure of sin". Bet the social justice crowd won't denounce that.
December 31, 2010 at 5:11 pm
The union employees responsible for the route that would have gotten the streets clear for emergency vehicles and to the hospital should be tried for manslaughter and given the maximum penalty.
December 31, 2010 at 5:30 pm
This is criminal negligence. Sue these bastards.
December 31, 2010 at 5:39 pm
But, of course, if we had socialized medicine, and people stopped dying because they didn't have insurance, that would be bad?
December 31, 2010 at 5:44 pm
But, of course, if we had socialized medicine, and people stopped dying because they didn't have insurance, that would be bad?
What in the blue hell does this comment have to do with anything said in the story? The baby died because the ambulance couldn't reach her, not because of a lack of insurance. Seriously, do yo just make comments for the sake of making comments and making an ass out of yourself?
December 31, 2010 at 7:26 pm
My point is that while CM is waxing indignant over the loss of this life, he never seems to be appalled by the lives lost because people can't afford insurance, or are refused treatment by insurance that they have paid for, or even the grotesque cost of our current healthcare system.
No — it's always government bad, private malfeasance okay.
December 31, 2010 at 8:38 pm
I am a nurse and I have seen people die or lose a leg because their government supplied insurance wouldn't authorize the care needed. Some paper pusher in a distant office made the decision based on a "one size fits all" generalized "care path" without taking into account the real needs of the real person. Those who oppose Obamacare do so because it is inefficient, way more expensive than it needs to be and is in no way an improvement over the system we currently have. And "the grotesque cost of our current healthcare system" results from 2 basic causes: the amazing progress in medical technology and the incredible amount of bureaucracy imposed by the government. I spend about 5 minutes on paper for every minute I spend with my patients. And that's just nursing, it doesn't include the unit secretary, the pharmacy, dietary, lab, x-ray, billing and on and on. Which do you think is more valuable to your health-the progress or the bureaucracy? Sorry, Dutchman, but giving medicine wholly over to a large centralized government agency is not the answer.