OSA Newsline - March 26, 2001 Last week's mailing is going out a second time this week. The mailing house sent out some of the mail mis-assembled. The incorrect envelopes offered pages 1,2,3,4,3,4,7, and 8, but no pages 5 and 6. The entire mailing is being redone, since we don't know who got the wrong pages. You will find the same information, with photos, in the News From OSA section of this website under March, 2001. A second flaw was caught by no less than three of our sharp eyed readers. They called to note an error in the pension column. The letters stated that buying back time for pension purposes is usually more expensive the longer you wait. This is true for Pension Tiers I and II but not for Tier IV. It is an impressive group that can wade through seven pages of single-spaced information and find a flaw near the very end. Sharp bunch. We will soon be increasing our incoming phone lines to our office telephone system We don't like members getting a busy signal. A reminder. The general membership meeting is this Thursday, March 29th, at 125 Worth Street, not at the OSA office. See you there. OSA Newsline - March 19, 2001 Two major items this week. First, we are furious at the spiteful behavior of the City Office of Labor Relations. They had signed off on our representation of most first level Administrative Staff Analysts as of January 9th, but it took nearly two months to get them to give us the home addresses of our own members. Even then, we only got the addresses because the Office of Collective Bargaining interceded on our behalf. Instead, as we have been told by the City, the agencies would make all due efforts to notify the persons involved before they had actually had dues deducted. The result of the City usurping our role was that four hundred persons were informed by their agencies that they had been a) demoted and b) were about to lose their health benefits and c) they should call the union if they have a problem with this. Our own mailing, thanks to OCB, will arrive early this week and no, no one has been demoted and they will not lose their health benefits and we are glad folks called, but we are very sorry they were already put through a state of distress before they called. You are not being demoted when you keep your existing job, and in most cases are being paid more for it. The proper term for the new title and the one we will insist on in collective bargaining for this year's contract is not Administrative Staff Analyst (non-managerial), it is Administrative Staff Analyst (Represented/OSA) Our second topic is the Associate Staff Analyst exam course. We are a victim of our own prior success. Over 80% of those who filed for the ASA Exam have now signed up for our training course. We had planned for 800 to 1000 possible students and over 1200 have now registered. Our teaching cadres have been preparing hard for the task ahead, but our current greatest worry is overcrowding. The course starts on Monday and please do not come if you are not registered for that evening. If you are not registered you will be turned away. OSA has now set up ten sessions and, if necessary, we will set up more, but are actually surprised at the level of enrollment. OSA now has a representative on the joint Labor/City committee set to oversee the Request for Proposals on the new MLC Drug Card. On Monday, our agent will be one of four labor and four city reps to meet with the various companies seeking our business. If this all works, a single drug card will soon cover 850,000 workers, retirees and dependents for a variety of ,but not all, prescription drugs. It does not seem possible that all this will be in place by July, but we will wait and see. OSA Newsline - March 12, 2001 Over one thousand members have now registered for the ASA training course. The course is due to start on March 19th. Sheila Gorsky, in charge of the whole operation, asks us to mention that some agency representatives have been giving out misinformation. The rule is that the only persons allowed to file for the promotional exam are those who are already certified as permanent Staff Analysts. Some agency reps have been instructing folks to file if they are provisional Staff Analysts. Wrong. Some others have been telling people to file if they are on the list to be appointed to Staff Analyst. Wrong again. Many $50 filing fees are being wasted on this bad advice. Personnel's Notice of Examination was clear. If you are actually appointed off the list between now and the exam, DCAS will allow for late filing. OSA Newsline – March 5, 2001 The ASA training course is set to start the week of March 19th. If you did not get a coupon in the mail, you can click on the February 2001 newslines to the left and go to the February 26th newsline for more information on the training course schedule and a registration coupon you can print out, complete and return to the union. Over 1200 individuals have filed to take the exam. Those taking the Associate Ed Analyst and Associate Transit Management exams could also take our training course since it is open to them and the exams are usually nearly identical. As of January 9th, OSA won the right to represent over 300 Administrative Staff Analysts. Unfortunately, thanks to City foot-dragging, we don't yet know all their names and do not yet have their home addresses. Thus, we can't send out mail to the affected Analysts. Last Friday, OSA again demanded the addresses from Labor Relations and we were told that, instead, the agencies would make every effort to notify those involved before dues deductions hit on March 16th. So much for good faith bargaining by the City of New York.