OSA Newsline - April 30, 2001 There were two items of interest last week. First, at the Municipal Labor Committee, last Thursday, there was general satisfaction expressed regarding the DC 37 settlement. Apparently, most union leaders did not actually expect to get a decent offer out of the city until after the election. Teachers, Police and Uniforms in general expect to hold out for more due to recruitment problems, but Probation, CWA, the Fire Dispatchers and a number of other non-DC 37 local presidents praised the settlement and will accept the results. OSA will now enter bargaining and we should have more definite news by May. Second, the MLC Drug Card for selected drugs moved a step closer to reality last week, but July 1st still seems optimistic. OSA Newsline - April 23, 2001 Much of the past week has been spent in discussions relating to last week's potential settlement of the DC37 contract. The major gains of the librarians of Local 1930 came immediately after the DC37 proposal was announced. Since the librarians, who are part of 37, are getting almost double the DC37 pattern, is there a pattern at all? We do note that the librarians had fallen far behind in salaries and had become hard to recruit and retain. Still equivalent and similar arguments are being made by the teachers and police and yet the City still insists that a pattern is now virtually set in stone. Well, maybe. There is a Municipal Labor Committee meeting scheduled for this week. It should be very interesting. OSA Newsline - April 16, 2001 The City finally put some real money on the table last week and the leadership of District Council 37 has chosen to bring the offer to their membership. The offer is for a 27 month contract with raises of four percent and four percent compounded, plus equity money and benefit improvements. If the membership of DC37 votes yes, the City will insist that the contract sets the pattern for all other contracts. Now it gets interesting. Also by surprise, the City is amending the notice of the ASA exam to add another aspect to the exam. A booklet will be sent to each applicant before the exam and there will be questions on the exam that will refer to the booklet. The booklet is due to be mailed to test takers towards the end of May. That is a lot of interesting news for one week and details will follow in the mail and on the News From OSA section of this website. OSA Newsline - April 9, 2001 Collective bargaining by DC37 resumes next week. The problem is that, in the off-again/on-again bargaining by the Police, the Uniformed Forces Coalition, the Teachers and DC37, we are all getting nowhere quickly. Perhaps the next round of bargaining will see the City removing their objectionable demands from the table. If not, we will continue to object to selective subjectively determined pay raises, fallaciously called merit increases, being used as a substitute for across-the-board real raises in salary. Perhaps the next round of bargaining will see the City offering a true raise and not the insulting offers put forth so far. If so, we are very willing to bargain. Nonetheless, no one should hold their breath at this point, since it begins to become clear that this Mayor has no intention to settle any labor contract at all. OSA Newsline - April 2, 2001 Not much news this week. Our retirees and volunteers made a nice showing in support of the Transport Workers Union rally last week. Mail on benefits has been sent out to our new Administrative Staff Analyst members and should have been received already. If not, they should call the union office and we’ll check their address and send out a new package. Of course, you can also see current information on OSA’s benefits in the member services section of this website.