The membership meeting last week was well attended. Members learned of the retirement of Tom Anderson as our OSA Vice Chairperson. After 40 years of service to his fellow analysts, Tom has finally retired and moved to Philadelphia. As required by the OSA constitution, the OSA executive board voted to ask Michael Daflos to take on Tom’s role. Mike, along with Mike Falzarano and John Harper, recently spent three years helping the United Federation of Teachers add nearly 600 newly organized Education Analysts to the teachers’ union.

Prior to that, Mike’s involvement with OSA goes way back to 1980. We will miss Tom but are pleased to have Mike with us.

Our Vice Chairperson of OSART, Al Milton, has also retired, and his spot will be filled by Jeanne O’Sullivan, who leaves the role of Corresponding Secretary of OSA to assume her new position.

This created further vacancies and John Mazzarella will fill Jeanne’s vacated secretarial role. Also, Mike Daflos vacated his OSART delegate-at-large position and we are now pleased to announce that Viviana Matwichuk has agreed to serve in his stead.

Viviana represents our upstate watershed analysts employed by the Department of Environmental Protection. Those members help to insure the continued supply of fresh water to our City.

On other fronts, there was a brief discussion of oncoming negotiations and pattern bargaining in general. There was also a report on up to three collective bargaining elections facing us.

The first one is for the Patient Representatives of NYC Health+Hospitals. This one is regrettable, because we are up against DC37 and we have always been opposed to conflict with 37. OSA believes we should be jointly organizing, rather than competing, but, when facing a challenge, we will do our best.

Iris Bailey is leading our excellent team of volunteer organizers over the next six weeks of the campaign. Our hopes are with her and her wonderful team.

Finally, our activists in training enjoyed the food provided between the meeting and the training session, especially the dessert of pumpkin donuts fresh from New England.

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

AUDIO September 24, 2018

The very good news is that our efforts at the Office of Collective Bargaining are paying off after years of hearings. Both the Administrative Nurses at Metro Plus and the Patient Representatives of NYC Health + Hospitals have been determined to be eligible for collective bargaining. Details will follow in the mail.

Classroom training for the Staff Analyst exam proceeds this week at the union office, free, as always, to members. There will be training on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. If you wish to register call George at the union office.

Thursday night is our general membership meeting which will be followed by our Delegate Training session. The membership meetings comes first at 6pm, followed approximately at 7pm by food and then the one hour of delegate training. To register for delegate training, call John LaGuardia at the union office.

Labor Relations Deputy Commissioner Tamara Lake has promised to begin our collective bargaining sessions by October. That’s good.

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

AUDIO September 17, 2018

Predictions of rain for the Labor Day Parade did not come true. Our members proudly stepped off together for what turned out to be a pleasant, cool, stroll up Fifth Avenue.

There seemed to be more bystanders cheering us than earlier years and that made the nice day just perfect. Photos from the day will be in the OSA Photo Gallery soon. Meantime, here's video of OSA on Fifth Avenue yesterday reaching a familiar building:

Now that Labor has celebrated its day, there is work to be done. We had requested to start negotiations as far back as July, but the City was, not unreasonably, on vacation.

We will renew our request.

Training for the Staff Analyst exam starts this week at the union office. Classes are being held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturdays, so if anyone is in need of the training, call George at the union office and choose your day or evening. It’s free to members of course.

Finally, we received good news last week. The Office of Collective Bargaining has certified that OSA has shown sufficient support from the Assistant and Associate Directors of Nursing to cause the agency to proceed with hearings. It is expected that we will easily be able to make our case on behalf of the nurses.

It is getting busy, but it is September.

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

AUDIO September 10, 2018

Happy Labor Day.

The union’s Labor Day Parade takes place next Saturday, September 8th. All of New York City’s labor movement will be there and so will we.

Members and families as well should meet at 9:45am this Saturday coming. The place is the very convenient Madison Avenue and 45th Street right near Grand Central Station. The parade groups will line up from Madison to Fifth Avenue and our planned site is nearer to Madison. If it is a nice day, we will each get our OSA t-shirt and hat and, if it is not so nice, a rain cape as well.

The entire walk is a bit over a mile and, since it is a parade, we more likely amble than walk. After we have marched, we disperse and reassemble at a restaurant for a shared Labor Day Parade luncheon.

It is especially meaningful this year due to the Supreme Court's Janus decision. The bad guys are hoping that we will now go away. We are going to show them that we are still here. It is a great day and I hope to see you there.

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

AUDIO September 3, 2018