Anti-Union Spin on New York Snow Storm In Doubt?

After the first major snow storm in New York, the story that emanated in the corporate media, was the union may be to blame for the slow snow removal. The story goes that five union workers were involved in staging a work "slowdown" that kept the city literally paralyzed. Two workers were from the transportation department and three were from the sanitation department. The workers purported to had mentioned to one city council member about the "slowdown". The two transportation workers have denied this claim and the three sanitation workers were never named by the council member.

Unfortunately, several people were reported to have died due to the delayed time it took emergency vehicles to reach residents in the bad road conditions. I was watching Morning Joe  and heard Wille Geist repeat the media narrative on air. But is it really true?

The city has recently made budget cuts to transportation and sanitation workers.  The good news is there was a federal investigation that was initiated after this disaster. But the bad news is that the investigation centered around the allegation of the union workers, but did not also include investigating recent worker layoffs as a possible problem for the slow removal of the snow. 

Councilman Daniel Halloran was the council member who started the story about the unions, but when he was questioned on specifics, his story changed and he would not provide the names of the sanitation workers who were supposedly involved. Halloran is a republican from Queens who has Tea Party support.

This anti-union narrative has become popular in the mainstream media as an excuse to blame organized government workers for everthing wrong in the country fiscally. How many times have you recently heard the meme that state workers should be cut in various states across the country to balance state budgets? 

While the investigation has not been completed, the media seemed eager to report, without verification, that the unions are to blame. The question is why does there seem to be an anti-union bias in our media? 

Watch this issue being discussed by Grittv's Laura Flanders.