Best wishes to all for a good Memorial Day weekend. The newsline right after a general membership meeting, is often sparse but not this week.

For one thing, we have a couple of jobs being offered. The Human Resources Administration has two Associate Staff Analyst positions available with their Finance Office. Applicants must be computer friendly and have strong writing skills. You need to know or be willing to learn how to query the HRA Enterprise Data Warehouse in support of your analyses.

Proficiency in creating Excel spreadsheets is important and the ability to use programs like Microsoft Access, Oracle Discover, Powerpoint and Crystal Report Writer are all very helpful.

If you are interested, go to Member Services, click on Agency Job Flyers, and check out the HRA job offering.

One more point. Unlike many other flyers issues by agencies, in this case there really are two jobs and they really are open.

At the general membership meeting last week, members were introduced to Dolores Parson (center right in the photograph, along with her mom, at left), the newest member of OSA’s Executive Board. Dolores has a long history of activity on behalf of our union and is replacing Josie Valentin, who has retired and relocated to Florida.

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services provided the union with a copy of the Administrative Staff Analyst list this afternoon and we are posting it here. We have broken the list down into nine sections with the agencies covered in each of the parts identified

Congratulations to all who passed the exam.

HRA

NYCHA

ACS

Transit Authority

DHMH

Office of the Actuary, NYCERS, Office of the Comptroller, OMB, Law Dept, City Planning, DOI, Dept of Education, Civilian Complaint Review Board, NYPD

FDNY, DHS, Dept of Correction, Dept for the Aging, FISA, DJJ, OPA, Equal Employment Practices Commission, TLC, OLR

Commission on Human Rights, NYC Police Pension Fund, DYCD, Probation, DBS, DOB, HPD, Sanitation, DEP, Finance

DOT, Parks, DDC, DOITT, DORIS, Consumer Affairs, DCAS, DA-Bronx, DA-Queens, TBTA

The Personnel Division of DCAS was nice enough to inform us, a week and a half ago, of the fact that the Administrative Staff Analyst exam results would be available on May 17th.

Well, yes and no. On the 17th, 18th, and 19th, many individuals got access to part or all of the list, but the official paper copies of the list were not available.

The result was that we were not able to scan the list and make it available on our website and, instead, spent three days disappointing members who called in to ask how they had done.

By now, if our information is correct, you should have received the result cards in the mail. We will, certainly, continue to seek our copy of the list for posting on our website.

We will also send an appropriately testy letter to Personnel, describing the problem and suggesting a remedy.

Our membership meeting for May is this Thursday evening, at the union office, starting at 6pm sharp. See you at the meeting.

Late yesterday, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services posted on its website the final answer key for Administrative Staff Analyst Exam #4540 given in June of 2005.

You can download the key by clicking here.

A quick comparison of the proposed and final keys reveals that the protests and test validation process resulted in changes to five questions on the exam. In all cases, DCAS will now accept more than one answer as correct. On three of the questions, they accept two answers, on one of the questions they accept three answers and on one question they accept all four possible answers as correct. A summary:

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services was kind enough to notify us that there will, in fact, be the establishment of the list for Administrative Staff Analyst on the 17th of this month.

Members can look forward to finding out how well they did, in terms of cards in the mail, and although it’s a little bit late in coming, it’s not extremely late, and we are pleased to be able to notify people that, with some luck, conceivably, they could start moving the list, perhaps this spring.

We don’t usually get two victories in a row, but this time we did. Last month’s newsline announced that the Office of Collective Bargaining had ruled in our favor on the Hospitals title of Senior Management Consultant.

This month, the New York City Housing Authority has, at last, agreed with us and a number of other unions representing City workers at 90 Church Street.

90 Church Street is that fortress-like building that stood next to the World Trade Center on 9/11. For many months since the building reopened, there has been an ongoing debate about the need for second interior windows. 90 Church Street is right next to the Ground Zero construction site and, in addition, the Deutsche Bank building next to the site, is about to be demolished.

Tom Anderson has been the lead on this matter and, recently, he was notified that the NY City Housing Authority had come to agree with the workers and that the double paned windows will be installed. There are still going to be problems with the construction and demolition in the area, but a good start has been made.

Good work Tom, good work the committee of many unions and good show, New York City Housing Authority.

We had a sizable group of our activists present at the rally for Roger Toussaint as he walked from the Brooklyn court to the Manhattan jail last week.

The difficulty faced by organized labor these days is epitomized by the jailing of Roger Toussaint.

In contract after contract, workers are being offered raises below the rate of inflation and, if a union fights back, the power of the establishment is brought down hard on them.

The TWU membership had agreed, after a re-vote, to accept the offer that had been made by the MTA to end the strike. Now, the MTA says the offer is off the table.

Look, the bargaining team of the Transport Workers Union called off the strike based on the pensions being taken off the table and swallowed, as a part of the peace pact, a deservedly unpopular clause requiring workers to pay 1.5% of their salary for health benefits.

The members initially rejected the offer, but stayed on the job anyway. After a re-vote, the offer was accepted, but now the MTA says that is not good enough. It does seem that the MTA is now provoking further labor unrest and all of New York City may end up paying for such misjudgement.

We hope not, but OSA and the rest of organized labor in our City, is watching and it is very clear which side we are on. May 1st is a good day to affirm the solidarity of labor in this matter.