Our volunteers are calling the MaBSTOA voters regarding the ongoing mail ballot election. For the most part, mail ballots have been received by now by those eligible to vote.

In a few cases, mail ballots have not been received as of yet.

And now comes notice of a strange procedure. Any voter who did not receive his or her ballot can call PERB, the folks running the election, on Tuesday, July 11th, between 8:30am and 4:30pm.

Do not call before July 11th; do not call after July 11th. The Public Employment Relations Board is obviously a bit rigid in its procedures.

The number to call in case of a lost or missing ballot is 1-800-994-0110.

Meanwhile, most voters have already gotten their ballots and we do urge prompt voting.

PERB will reject any vote received after 1pm on Tuesday, August 1st. Did we mention that PERB is just a bit rigid.

Have a Happy Fourth of July and check back on July 10th. In the meantime, if you got the ballot, please vote.

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AUDIO June 28, 2017

The news this week is the start of mail ballot voting by MaBSTOA Analysts and Assistant Budget Chiefs. We suggest voting quickly to avoid ballots becoming forgotten or lost.

We also encourage those eligible to vote to review the materials posted under the "MaBSTOA ANalysts" tab on this website before they vote. There are several videos which explore the reason you should vote to belong to a union and why that union should be OSA.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO June 26, 2017

Ballots go out in the MaBSTOA mail ballot election this week. The ballots go out from Albany on the 21st and should be received this week or early next.

Our union has sent out mail to many of those eligible to vote, but not all. MaBSTOA is refusing to send us home addresses, even though it is a mail ballot. Okay, we were forbidden to visit the workers on their work location by management and yet we did get to meet many of them anyway.

We know MaBSTOA is resisting granting representation to our professional brothers and sisters, but we will persevere, even so.

Feedback so far has often been favorable. After all, MaBSTOA deliberately gave these workers lower raises than our union members.

It could be said that management has helped us organize by their failure to give fair raises.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO June 19, 2017

Last week, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the New York City Office of Collective Bargaining. Prior to OCB, New York City’s labor relations were a shambles.

Most of the time, New York City civil servants were ignored, low-paid and unheard from. The rest of the time, we were on strike or involved with various slowdowns, sickouts or other work actions.

The first circumstances created the second and the answer that evolved was the Office of Collective Bargaining.

Labor relations became far less chaotic once OCB had been established and was functioning. This was important to OSA since many of our earliest battles were fought out at seemingly endless hearings on our allegedly managerial or confidential status.

OCB’s attempts to play honest broker between management and labor worked out pretty well. The survival of the office for 50 years is a sign that both sides believe OCB has done well in filling this role.

We were pleased to join representatives of management and labor in congratulating OCB on their survival and our own.

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AUDIO June 12, 2017

The rules of the Public Employment Relations Board relating to the MaBSTOA collective bargaining election were updated.

The ballots will now go out on June 21st. We are concerned that the PERB judge suggested that we be given the mailing list of home addresses on July 27th, essentially after the election.

Clearly, since we did get enough signed union designation cards to qualify to hold the election, we are now in contact with lots of potential members at the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority.

Meanwhile, contact with some, but not all, means that many Analysts will be asked to cast a vote with no prior contact with our union. That can’t be right.

We will see what our lawyers can do about this.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO June 5, 2017