Contract negotiations appear to have reached a satisfactory conclusion. Our negotiating team has voted to recommend acceptance of the current City offer. A mailing is due out by this weekend.

The mailing will give the details of the settlement and a ballot will be enclosed as well.

The proposed contract will create longevity differentials for newly unionized titles and add to existing longevity differentials for titles already receiving payment. In all cases, the amount of new payment (or addition to existing payment) will be, on an annual basis, $516 after completing 10 years of service, $516 more after completing 15 years of service and $520 after completing 20 years of service.

The proposed contract will run from July 13, 2006 to August 24, 2008 and will call for a 2% raise as of August of 2006 and a 5% raise compounded in February of 2007.

Minimums and maximums go up in accord with the raises and the Welfare Fund is increased as well.

The Transit Check program is expanded to suburban transit lines and we will be covered by the relaxation of residency rules if and when the rule finally gets changed.

On behalf of the negotiating team, OSA Chair Bob Croghan expresses his thanks to the membership for their patience and support during the past year. We did get lots of complaints about the slowness of the process, but we also received overwhelming support from the members every time a meeting was polled.

Ballots must be returned by January 10, 2008.

Our experiment with using tickets for the OSA holiday party did improve the result. Since we now knew the numbers due to arrive, adequate preparations could be made.

The number of tickets sent out went over 1000, but the threat of bad weather held attendance down to about 700.

Members who commented on the party were, generally, very favorable.

On the topic of the contract, December 19th is the deadline for the union and the City to respond in writing to a series of questions raised by Melissa von der Leith. Ms. von der Leith is the hearing officer assigned by the Office of Collective Bargaining to our case.

OSA’s lawyers are ready with our answers, including details on our proposals for voluntary furloughs and many other productivity improvements. We are not so sure that the City will be ready on time.

Meanwhile, informal discussions between the union and the City do continue.

Last week, there was some progress on our main contract. On Friday, December 7th, the union received the follow-up letter from Melissa von der Lieth of the Office of Collective Bargaining promised in our face-to-face meeting on November 16th. In her letter, Ms. von der Lieth seeks clarification of several issues and is requesting additional information from both the union and the City by December 19th. The union’s team and our attorneys will be drafting the reply this week. Meanwhile, informal discussions between the union and the City continue.

If you are a permanent Associate Staff Analyst in search of a new job, you might be interested in three ASA positions available at the Human Resources Administration's Finance Office. The ASAs will initiate and manage revenue development projects and perform other analytical work. For a full description of the positions, you can download a job posting by clicking here.

You must be a permanent ASA and your agency must be willing to let you out. If you have questions about the jobs, you can contact Gordon Kraus-Friedberg at 212-331-3522. Otherwise, to apply, follow the directions on the posting.

Finally, this week is the Holiday Party so, in many cases, see you there.

The most interesting topic at last week’s membership meeting was our long-delayed main contract. It is upsetting around the holidays to have our raises held hostage by the Mayor, but that is what has occurred.

On a less stressful topic, our holiday party looks to be very well subscribed with over 800 tickets being mailed out as of last week. Thanks to using tickets, the party will be more predictable, thus enough food for all attending.

Finally, Sheila Gorsky reported on the recent Staff Analyst hiring pool. Sheila noted that as an old “open competitive” list, there is a natural drop off of candidates from the list as time passes. Over 250 candidates were called, only 132 arrived, and over one hundred landed jobs. Our hope is that since this pool reached past list number 1000, one more solid citywide pool could exhaust this list.