At last Thursday’s general membership meeting, Joan Kiok, OSA’s chief counsel, swore in the newly elected members of the OSA and OSART executive boards. This was at least the twelfth time that Joan gave the oath of office to the OSA leadership at the start of a two year administration.

There was some news on negotiations reported at the meeting. We have a number of negotiations in progress, but the one that has recently gone slowly has now speeded up. The main City contract negotiation team met in late November and gave the City our demands. After a delay for the holiday season, the City has finally scheduled a meeting for the 13th of February. Thus, we can now hope for more speedy progress. We would like this settled quickly.

Voting is now over on the Enrollment Sales Representative election. It was an odd election in many ways, but, on balance, the volunteers, officers, staff, and on- location leaders of OSA did all we could do during this campaign. We worked hard, campaigned honestly and spared no effort. Win or lose, our guys and gals did a fine job. We will know the results by next week.

This is the last week of voting for the Enrollment Sales Representative campaign, and normally most voters would have voted already. Instead, in this election, a very large percentage of the voters did not get their ballots because the Health and Hospitals Corporation has supplied very incomplete and/or inaccurate addresses.

Our field organizers keep running across eligible voters who did not get a ballot and we are concerned that, even when they call for a replacement, that replacement may not be delivered in time.

The Office of Collective Bargaining has stated that anyone seeking a replacement ballot must call them at (212) 306-7160 by today and that ballots sent back must be postmarked by January 26th.

We had some good news last week from the Police Department. A half dozen of our provisional Staff Analyst Trainees have been, finally, laterally transferred from other underlying permanent titles into permanent Staff Analyst Trainee. Thus, those six persons need not take the Staff Analyst Trainee exam. Congratulations on your appointment.

Now some good news for candidates for Staff Analyst. DCAS sent out certification lists to a dozen agencies last week. This will lead to a number of appointments to the position of probable permanent Staff Analyst. The news is doubly good because once a candidate is appointed to Staff Analyst, that candidate can also file for the next upcoming promotional exam to Associate Staff Analyst.

However, the normal closing date for applications for the upcoming ASA exam is postmarked by tomorrow, January 23rd. If you are already a Staff Analyst, make sure your application is sent in, return receipt requested, by tomorrow.

The exception to the January 23rd closing date for applications is made only for Staff Analysts appointed between now and the exam. If you are appointed, for example, in February, your agency can send in your application for the exam after the January 23rd date. Note well: your agency must send DCAS the application for you. DCAS will not accept it from you yourself after the 23rd.

If you are appointed before the exam and your agency does not agree to forward your application to DCAS, please call Sheila Gorsky at the union office for assistance.

Thanks are due to our field organizers, volunteers and Health and Hospitals Corporation delegates. A very intense campaign has been waged to represent the Enrollment Sales Representatives of MetroPlus.

Voting by mail ballot is ongoing since last week and ESR’s can still vote up until January 26th. If you believe you are an eligible voter and did not receive a ballot, Enrollment Sales Reps can call the Office of Collective Bargaining at 212-306-7160 to obtain a ballot. However, such calls must be received by January 22nd.

No matter how that election turns out, OSA is growing. In 2007, our first victory of the new year occurred this month. OSA has won the right to represent Analysts working to create the new personnel system for New York City. The new system – NYCAPS – is staffed by a title called NYCAPS Process Analyst and, as of now, they are our brothers and sisters within our union. Good work by our organizers and legal team headed by Joan Kiok.

Negotiations are in progress in a number of areas, but in the main City unit, we are awaiting the City’s response to our last suggestions.

Applications for the Associate Staff Analyst Promotional Exam are now available from DCAS. In addition, our Education Department has sent out copies of the application, plus the training registration form, to those persons that we believe are eligible to take the exam. If you don’t get the package in the mail by this Friday, and you think you are eligible for the exam, call Sheila or Elba to ask if you should be getting one. Anyone who was not appointed to the permanent title of Staff Analyst would be wasting the application fee to apply. Also included in the mailing is an information coupon regarding the Staff Analyst Trainee Exam. The same material will be up on the "Campaigns and Updates" section of this website shortly. In the meantime, you can find the ASA Notice of Exam on that page. Information on the Staff Analyst Trainee Exam and a form to register for the training for that exam will be going out in March.

Speaking of exams, Sheila Gorsky reported some good news on the Administrative Staff Analyst list. The HRA list is now being called and is expected to move dramatically. The union’s efforts by Mike Schady, and others, to get the list moving helped no doubt, but it may have also helped that the Commissioner of that agency went on to another position.

The union’s general officers election was a quiet one this year, as only three out of nine positions were contested. Counting took place at the union office on January 4th.Elected for a two year term as Delegates At Large, the winners in alphabetical order are Ron Lehman, Wilfrid St. Surin, and Jay Warshofsky. Congratulations to those elected and special thanks to all who came down to help with the counting so it went quickly.

There were no negotiations last week, but this week marks the start of the mail balloting by the Enrollment Sales Representatives of the Health and Hospitals Corporation. Any OSA activists in HHC who know any of these MetroPlus workers should feel free to campaign for our side

Tuesday is a national day of remembrance for Jerry Ford and it is also a national holiday for federal employees. In a prior year, our members at the Transit Authority got the day off for Ronald Reagan’s day of remembrance but, as far as we can tell, no such luck this year. We did try and check, on Friday, with Labor Relations, but as far as they knew, we were not off for the day.

Thursday of this week will be the counting of the ballots for our executive board election. Any member who wishes to be present should try to arrive before 6pm. Candidates certainly should be present.

We are also in the middle of a collective bargaining election for the right to represent the Enrollment Sales Representatives. Those ballots go out on January 8th.

Meanwhile, a number of the ESR’s are being fired during the election period. Allegedly, management, MetroPlus, is cleaning house before the employees get due process rights after the election.

Thus, we are not only campaigning, we are also defending individuals targeted for dismissal, even before they are actually members.

We were able to succeed in winning restoration with back pay for the first person who came to us, Ken Drayton of Kings County Hospital. This, of course, is a good thing, and many thanks to our organizers and the top-notch OSA lawyers.

It is, however, sad that this is occurring.

Finally, for those we believe to be eligible for the upcoming Associate Staff Analyst Exam, a mailing is on its way to you containing the application for the exam and a form to sign up for the exam training. There is also a pre-registration form for the Staff Analyst Trainee exam. The same material will be up on the "Campaigns and Updates" section of this website shortly. In the meantime, you can find the ASA Notice of Exam on that page. Information on the Staff Analyst Trainee Exam and a form to register for the training for that exam will be going out in March. If you think you are eligible for the ASA exam and have not received your mailing by the end of next week, please call Sheila Gorsky at (212) 686-1229