Happy Halloween. We were a trifle frightened by last week’s negotiation with the New York City Housing Authority. Management invoked the Ghost of Christmas Past and announced they would not pay overtime to managerial employees earning over $100,000 a year.

Well, we are delighted to learn that some of our recently unionized members earn as much as that. However, as we had to point out, if we represented them, they were not managers. As represented career and salary employees, if the Housing Authority wanted them to work overtime, the Housing Authority would indeed have to pay them for that work. Negotiations will go on.

Next week, we are looking forward to the Administrative Community Relations Specialist Exam opening. The Notice of Examination is due out on November 2nd. If you are interested, take a look at it and consider filing.

The union will be assisting members after work starting on Monday, November 7th. Call George at the union office for an appointment.

This is an E&E exam and they can be tricky, but OSA has a long history of helping our members on these exams. On the recent Administrative Analyst qualifier for the open competitive exam, we helped 1200 candidates and only two of those candidates failed to qualify.

You can find the Notice of Exam for ACRS and a link to the City's Online Application System website on our Exams, Lists and Training page. Click on the button at the left.

And most delightfully, candidates up to number 1005 on the open competitive Administrative Staff Analyst list are receiving notice of a citywide hiring pool on November 14th and 15th. OSA will be there.

If you get the notice for the pool, you should notify your boss and your HR Department. In many cases, the agency will send a DP72 form to Personnel on your behalf. In those cases, you can be hired without actually attending the pool.

A number of members have been calling us for the details of the upcoming Administrative Community Relations Specialist exam. Well, we don’t have any details yet. The Notice of Examination is not due out until November 2nd. Once it is posted online, the union can analyze the requirements and begin training staff to assist candidates. We anticipate the assistance should be available, but for details call next week’s newsline.

Our other news is that the promotional exam lists for Administrative Staff Analyst are moving nicely and even have been exhausted in a number of agencies. The open competitive list for Administrative Staff Analyst will now be called by some agencies.

The Associate Staff Analyst lists seem to be delayed in many agencies in order to deal with the results of the Administrative Staff Analyst promotions. The Staff Analyst list is, however, beginning to be moved and candidates are being invited to hiring pools. It keeps us all very busy answering civil service and pool related questions but it is very nice to see so many gaining permanent status or promotions.

There was some interesting news last Friday.

Background. In July of this year, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development was very pleased with the work of 270 of their employees in the Section 8 Housing Vouchers division. Meanwhile, HPD also had a problem with staff retention. The agency responded by raising salaries.

Excellent.

However, the method used to select who got the raises is a bit unclear and some employees who did not get the raises quite properly complained.

Once the matter was investigated, it turned out that HPD had developed a new in-house title system equipped with minimum salaries for the in-house titles. In doing so, they apparently failed to notify the Department of Citywide Administrative Services’ personnel branch or the Office of Labor Relations or the Office of Management and Budget.

Had they done so, HPD would have learned that such an action was improper.

On Friday, the mayor held a news conference to explain what had occurred and, on Friday also, the unions met with HPD, Labor Relations, DCAS and OMB.

An email was also sent out by HPD that same morning, notifying the employees who had received the raises that those raises would be halted on the November 4th paycheck.

As it turned out, the email was not correct. By the close of the labor/management meeting, the following points had been agreed upon by management and labor.

First, the employees paid in error will not be subject to recoupment of the money already paid out.

Second, the unauthorized raises will halt on November 18th, not November 4th.

Third, in recognition of the need to avoid devastating the lowest paid of these workers , salaries of workers with less than two years on the job will be computed at the higher rate paid to incumbents with two or more years on the job. This last concession effects 59 of the employees involved.

There will be more meetings on the issue of rewards and retention over the next few weeks, but a good start seems to have been made on Friday. HPD’s intentions were fine, but their action was inappropriate. It would be hard for the mayor to run the City if each agency made up its own rules.

OSA itself had only five members affected who got the raises.

The promotional lists for Administrative Staff Analyst are moving quickly. Appointments from the open competitive list may be certified as early as November.

The promotional Associate Staff Analyst list is not moving as quickly. If your agency has called from the Associate list, please call Sheila Gorsky at the union office to let us know.

The Public Employment Relations Board has called a meeting for November 9th in response to OSA filing enough signed designation cards to qualify for an election.

Among the unions summoned were DC37, CWA1180 and TWU Local 100. We were the first union to seek to organize Analysts at the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority and also the first to file cards for an election.

Congratulations to Mike Altman and his team of volunteer organizers. Win, lose or draw in the upcoming election, our volunteers did their part and did a fine job.

Finally, photos from the 2016 Labor Day Parade are now up on this website on the September 2016 page of the OSA Photo Gallery. If you were there, check it out and find your picture. If you weren't there, take a look and join us next year.

Last week’s membership meeting was well attended,but ran longer than usual. Our thanks to those who lasted until 8:30pm. Normally, we end between 7:30 and 8pm, but there was a lot to report.

One item of interest this week is our civil service seminar set for this Thursday, October 6th at the union office. If you have not registered for it, call George at 212-686-1229 and see if he has room for you. If not, we may hold a second seminar soon. (We apologize for a typo on this page which previously had the wrong day of the week listed for the seminar. It is definitely being held Thursday night.)

Other than that, our main news is the moving of the lists and, if you are called, call the union for any questions.