By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – Erie County Executive Joel Giambra is demanding that snowplow operators drive solo.
Thursday, unionized county snowplow drivers voted in favor of keeping two workers in every truck. But that vote was met with an angry reaction from Giambra. He told public works leaders to discipline or fire workers who do not comply with the single driver plow rule.
Giambra says the streamlining would save the county taxpayers $900,000 a year.
"Multiply that by five years and that's $4.5 million worth of savings that we tried to make happen," Giambra said. "But we were thwarted by the union in this particular case."
Giambra says if the union workers fail to follow his order, he would ask the governor to activate the National Guard. But union officials maintain Giambra is overreacting, saying they will cooperate while they research their legal options.