OSA Newsline - August 19, 2013

This is a strange year. All of the city unions agree that it is a good idea to do an audit of the receipt of health care by dependents of city employees.

So, when the mayor hired an outside vendor called Aon, we cooperated, and even warned them of possible pitfalls and errors. Aon did listen and agree at first but then they checked back with the mayor and all of our advice was rejected.

After a few months of this, we went to court to avoid the mayor’s clumsy audit doing irreparable harm to some of our members. The court agreed with us, but consider the letter from Harry Nespoli written on August 13th.

“To the Municipal Labor Committee from Harry Nespoli regarding the dependent audit.

As you know the MLC applied for and received a temporary restraining order against the City of New York on July 17th that prohibited the city from continuing the insurance dependent audit. In subsequent weeks, the city and the MLC met to resolve outstanding issues and came to agreement on most issues. Despite the progress made in resolving all the issues and despite the temporary injunction, the city permitted Aon to send out a final notice letter to city employees. The MLC immediately protested this action as it violated the temporary restraining order and the MLC demanded the city issue a new notice that the audit is under legal proceedings with no penalties for those employees who do not timely respond.

The MLC told the city that if the issues are not resolved this week, the MLC will return to court.

Until all outstanding issues are resolved, the MLC recommends that unions tell their members that they need not respond. We will keep you informed of new developments. Harry.”

In other words, the mayor started by picking a fight with us for no good reason and now is picking a fight with the court for no good reason. He won’t win, because he’s wrong.

When the mayor is not picking a fight, he is spending the rest of the time telling everyone what a good job he has done, simply marvelous, and how will we ever live without him. We prefer that. He should spend all of his remaining time telling us over and over what a wiz he is.

And then, on January 1st, our next mayor can start picking up the pieces of the wreckage Bloomberg is trying to leave behind.

The summer mailing will be out shortly. In the meantime, the contents can be found as the August 2013 "OSA Newsletter" on this website.

OSA Newsline - August 16, 2013

As we've reported here previously, the city has been pushing for the issuance of a Request For Proposals for health benefits. We've observed that the mayor should be negotiating the terms of any such RFP with the municipal unions. The Municipal Labor Committee obtained a temporary restraining order last week against the city's issuance of an RFP. This week, the city sought to have the Appellate Division vacate the order. It didn't.

The parties will be back in court on August 20th and we'll keep you posted on developments. You can read the MLC's notice to member unions by clicking on this link.

OSA Newsline - August 13, 2013

Several weeks ago we took note of the temporary restraining order issued by the courts at the request of the Municipal Labor Committee in connection with the dependent eligibility verification audit. We told you at the time that you should assemble the material requested but not to send it in just yet.

Now, some of our members are receiving "final" reminders from the city about the submission of the requested information. Don't worry.

Our advice stands. For the moment, collect the documentation you may need to submit, but do not submit it. We will keep you posted on developments here on the website and on the phone hotline message. The restraining order remains in effect.

You can see the memo from the Municipal Labor Committee to MLC member unions by clicking this link.

Slide shows are now up in the OSA Photo Gallery section of this website from the March Women's Committee presentation and the April Black History Committee event. If you attended, perhaps you will see yourself in one of the photos. If you didn't attend, perhaps you wlll see why you should attend the next event.

OSA Newsline - August 5, 2013

Members have been calling the union office over the mailing sent out recently. NILICO, an insurance company, has offered all members and retirees a free $3,500 accidental death coverage. In return, they would like to sell us some of their other products.

Some of the NILICO products will not be of interest to our members. There is no value to the purchase of a discount card for optical and dental if you are already getting free dental and free eyeglasses.

We do have some members and many retirees who live outside the New York area and discount cards may make sense if the retiree, especially, lives in a region where neither Davis Vision nor the MetroDent panel have any providers. Also, some members might like extra insurance and that is an option. If you do return their card, you will be offered a free home visit and you can ask the representative on the phone to answer any questions you have in advance.

We apologize if the marketing letter sent by NILICO has caused any confusion.