This is a newsline for the two week period starting December 23rd.Two week period? Yes, due to the Christmas and New Years holidays, there will not be a great deal to report, so a two week period makes sense.

We will be meeting, during this period, with the City for a technical meeting on the contract, but that won't be final anyway. We do hope that the City speeds up on our negotiation in 2020 and we expect that they will.

Other than that, a happy holiday to all of our brothers and sisters and their families as well.

Please check back in two weeks.

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AUDIO - December 23, 2019

The season is upon us and everything slows down from now into January. One exception is that the City has now agreed to meet with us on December 30th on matters related to our contract. We have seen the recent CWA Local 1180 settlement and are hoping that we will be next.

Meanwhile, life goes on and at least 521 members and their guests attended the OSA Holiday Party out in Queens. The Terrace on the Park is less historic than Grand Prospect Hall, but does have working elevators, was not cold between 5pm and 6pm, does have parking and has drop dead gorgeous views of the City. The food and drink were excellent and the music kept the dance floor full for hours.

The nicest part of the evening for OSA leadership came in the first hour. The daughter of one of our members came over to thank us for saving her mother's job. It seems that, in 1983, when she was twelve years old, the OSA leadership was able to avert her mother's job loss by making a strong case for an extension of probation and a change of boss. The new boss was very pleased with her mother's work, probation was passed, and later years brought promotions and, in 2004, retirement.

Then, years later, her daughter, now herself a successful career civil servant, came to our party and reminded us of wars fought - and won - 36 years earlier.

That was as nice a Christmas present as any union leader could ever hope to receive.

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AUDIO - December 16, 2019

Three nice things happened to us last week.

First, our friends at the Office of Labor Relations were nice enough to call and offer us some dates for our next session. We were available for all six of those dates, but finally, the City cut it back to December 23rd or December 30th. They would let us know which they had decided upon. This will be one of those technical meetings where details are thrashed out but they are valuable for that purpose.

Second, our largest compressed work schedule agency, HRA, is moving towards offering such a schedule to many more of our members in that agency. The agency was very pleased with the results of the nine day biweekly schedule offered to half of our members last year, so they are now expanding it.

Last year, the one drawback that we saw to the HRA compressed work schedule was that those who chose it lost their flex time. This year, the agency is going to offer at least a 30 minute flex, as well as the nine day biweekly schedule. Very good.

Finally, we met with Dr. Talya Schwartz, the new CEO of MetroPlus. We have many members at MetroPlus, but no previous CEO of that organization had shown any interest in meeting with the unions representing their members. Dr. Schwartz did.

She came across as a sincere person, anxious for both for good work, but also fairness on the job. We can endorse her position on both. All of us attending formed a favorable impression of the new boss.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, comes our holiday party in Queens for a change. Hope to see you there.

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AUDIO - December 9, 2019

The City has not yet chosen to set a date for our next negotiation. So, we wait.

Meanwhile, the HIP special health re-opener period is now expired. As it was expiring, a member called in from the Corrections Department. He had tried to change enrollment and got the run-around instead.

He went to his agency who sent him to Emblemhealth, who sent him back to his agency, round and round.

He called the union and Vojna Gerraghty was able, after a lot of careful phone time, to determine that both Emblem and the City were failing to coordinate.

Vojna was ble to help the member, but this causes us to worry as to how many others had problems switching and did not call us for help.

We may be able to get a further reopener if any member tried to switch, but was prevented. We would ask any such members to call the union office and leave a message to that effect with John LaGuardia. We will get back to them quickly.

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AUDIO - December 2, 2019