Bloomberg Docks City Workers Pay

According to the Wall Street Journal, private companies largely allowed people to not come in to work in the days after Hurricane Sandy made travel treacherous, torturous or impossible.

But Mayor Bloomberg is docking city employees who failed to make it to work on those days:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided that any New York City employee who failed to show up for work during the week when superstorm Sandy forced the entire mass-transit system and many bridges and tunnels to close will be docked vacation or compensatory time.

His edict prompted outrage from workers and union leaders who called the policy mean-spirited and unfair.

"Penalizing dedicated public employees who were unable to report for work through no fault of their own during the most devastating storm in this city's history is unreasonable and unconscionable," said Lillian Roberts, executive director of DC37, the city's largest municipal union. "This union will do everything in its power to have this policy rescinded."

City employees began receiving emails this week notifying them of the administration's policy for work during the week of Oct. 28, when the storm hit.

Employees who worked their regular jobs, or worked on storm-related activities like helping at an evacuation shelter or the Office of Emergency Management, will receive their customary pay, according to one such email.

Late arrivals and early departures were excused. But if employees were unable to report to work, "You must charge the absence[s] against either your annual leave or compensatory time balances," the email said. "Annual leave will be advanced if you have no annual leave or compensatory time available."

The mayor's spokesman told the WSJ that city employees serve New Yorkers and are expected to come to work no matter what.

But the Journal notes that when many city workers got to work on those days right after Sandy, they found their offices were closed.

Or, as in the case of the Superstorm Sandy PD By Candlelight Day that teachers and DOE employees enjoyed on Friday November 2, they came in to work, sat around for three hours in an auditorium, then were dismissed.

What's the point Bloomberg is making with this?

He says the point is, "I don't know how you were brought up, I was always brought up that you had an obligation to work. Maybe it's different in your world."

To me, the point is the mayor's an authoritarian asshole who seems to despise the people who work for him in city government.

It's one thing to require emergency personnel to come to work during the storm.

That's about public safety and that makes sense.

It's something else to require city employees working in the marriage license division to come to work on those days or dock the pay of anybody who didn't.

Just another example of what an incredible self-centered, egotistical little man Our Bloomberg is.

It will be nice to see him ride off into the sunset soon.

Or rather have his people drive him off into the sunset in one of the two SUV's that constantly follow him around.