The big news, of course, is lay-offs. We have thirteen members at HHC scheduled for lay-off on April 20th. The OSA leadership has been meeting with many of the unions affected by these lay-offs. A meeting with DC 37 and the Municipal Labor Coalition was held last Thursday. We met the leadership of the Communications Workers on the weekend.
The only unions affected are the Nurses, an independent union, Local 420 of DC 37, CWA 1180 and finally, affecting Analysts, OSA and a single member of Local 1407.
A meeting has been set with the Office of Labor Relations for this Thursday. We have inquired in advance as to whether our union will be offered a severance package. Local 420 apparently was offered such a package, found it insufficient and turned it down. In our own case, the City has not yet made any offers, although we expect that they will do so.
OSA Newsline - March 23, 1998
With no preliminary warning, late last week, OSA was handed a tentative lay-off list from the Health and Hospitals Corporation. We are scheduled to lose four Associate Staff Analysts, four Senior Health Care Program Planning Analysts, four Systems Analysts and one Associate Systems Analyst.
Bad as the news was, the sheer irregularity of the process gives the union some hope. Normally, there are meetings first.
In this case, although the City met with President Butler of Local 420, the rest of the unions were not involved. According to a NY Times report last Thursday, a union rejection of a severance package may have caused the lay-off list to go out.
There is an MLC meeting set for this Tuesday and we should know more soon.
The membership meeting is set for this Thursday at 125 Worth Street, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 6pm
OSA Newsline - March 16, 1998
The mailing went out this past Thursday so, if you don't receive it by next Wednesday, call Yvonne at (212) 686-1229 or consult the online version on the News From OSA page for March on this site.
In the mail was the story of one of our members who was discharged improperly and is now due almost two years back pay. More developments. The agency is refusing to comply with the arbitrator's decision and is refusing to restore our member to the job. Okay, so the union goes to court. Then, the judge slaps the City's wrist. Our member gets her job back six months down the road and she gets full credit for those six months of service, plus back pay and still more accumulated leave time.
Okay with us.
The union will meet this Monday with the Office of Labor Relations on the issue of payment of the 4/1/98 raise due our members at the Board of Education. Details later.
OSA Newsline - March 9, 1998
Our union has still not received any numbers from the City relating to our 1.52% equity piece. It is expected, at present, that the City will not give us the numbers any time soon. As a result, we will not be able to sign off on any of the outstanding local unit contracts.
The City will then refuse to pay us the 3% due on July 1st for most members and April 1st for Board of Education members.
Our attorney, Joan Kiok, has already warned the Office of Labor Relations that she is under orders to file an improper practice petition if no numbers are forthcoming soon.
A mailing is due out this week and should be at your home by next week. You can also find it on this website on the "News From OSA" page for March 1998.
In the mail is a report of the status of the Associate Staff Analyst lists and a chart, as well.
Also, we feature the story of one of our members who was denied due process and fired two years ago.
One of the nicest aspects of this story is that as soon as our member arrives back on her old job, she will be entitled to two years back leave, both sick and annual. Therefore, her first order of business, after cashing her retroactive pay check, should be to seriously consider taking a well earned vacation.
Another article notes that the unions have been having problems with the City's self-investigatory branches. The moral of the story at the end of this article is to warn that if either the Agency Inspector General or the Department of Investigation contacts you, call the union before talking to them.
Both the Police Department and the Department of Health are holding a Staff Analyst hiring pool on Tuesday of this week. Candidates can go to either, but unless they can somehow make both pools, whichever one is missed will record a "failed to report" note next to each absentee's name. If a candidate is hired that day, no sweat. If not, a letter must be sent to the NYC Personnel Department of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), attention Certification Unit.
"Failures to report" are deleted from future certification lists, unless a request is received to restore their names.
Finally, on Saturday, March 7th, OSA hosted the southeast regional meeting of the New York Labor Party. The opening remarks were led off by Arthur Cheliotes, President of CWA Local 1180 and Chairperson of the New York state Party. Topics covered included WEP, the threatened end to open enrollment at CUNY, and a speaker on campaign finance reform. We will be asking the speaker on campaign finance reform to repeat his remarks at our March general membership meeting.
OSA Newsline - March 2, 1998
The Office of Collective Bargaining begins hearings on our Administrative Staff Analyst case today. It has taken about three years to get this far, and we are pleased to have at least gotten to the hearing stage.
Our grievance section reported a very nice victory last week. One of our members had been fired a few days after completion of her two years probationary service as a provisional Associate Staff Analyst. The key point was that she was fired, without charges, a couple of days after completion of the term of service needed for a unionized provisional employee to gain due process rights.
The union warned the agency at each step of the process, but the agency arrogantly refused to compromise or restore our member to her job. Now, nearly a year later, an Arbitrator has done so for us. Our member is due a year's back salary and the apologies of her agency. We'll settle for the money.
