Last week, with no advance notice, either to the staff or the unions that represent them, the mayor announced the merger of the Department of Juvenile Justice with the Administration for Children’s Services. The workers were told the same day as the public announcement on television and this naturally caused some distress to the workers involved.

The City will now meet with union representatives to give us the details and tell us how the change will impact the workers involved with both DJJ and ACS.

Actually, merging DJJ and ACS is a reversal of history since DJJ was itself spun off from Special Services for Children many years ago. Since Special Services for Children is the earlier name for today’s Administration for Children’s Services, the entire story is just one big circle.

We would have preferred advance notice. It would have been a better and more open way to handle the merging of two agencies. In any case, we should know more soon.

The January mailing is out and should have been received by members already. If not, call George at the office and we can check your address and send you a replacement. The content is up on this website as the January 2010 News From OSA.

The general membership meeting is this Thursday evening at the union office. See you at the meeting.

Classroom training for the analyst exams is still going on, but the weekend series is now completed. Thanks are due to our union’s education division. Starting way back on December 2nd, it has been a seven day week until this past Sunday.

Union mail is going out this week and should arrive by this coming weekend. If you don’t receive it by next Monday, please call George at the union office, so we can check your address and send out another copy. The same information is already posted on this website as the January 2010 News From OSA.

This Wednesday, our union will have representatives standing on the steps of City Hall. Dr. Barry Leibowitz, president of the Doctors’ Council has asked our help to publicize their union’s objections to the health plan being crafted by Congress. One of the not-so-minor points has to do with hospital reimbursement rates and it is this issue that is worrying the public sector unions. You can download a flyer by clicking here.

Training is proceeding at 335 Adams Street, seven days a week. Please note that, as mentioned in last week's newsline, the current series on the weekend is the only one planned for this year. Thanks to the UFT, the space is adequate for a change.

As members know, OSA and the UFT are both seeking to get the Education Analysts entirely covered by a union. At present, hundreds of Education Analysts and Education Officers are classified as non-represented employees or as managers.

As a result, instead of union raises, these poor souls were recently handed a 2% raise for each of the past two years by the Department of Education.

If the lack of grievance rights were not enough, the Department of Education is also now giving smaller raises to managers than to the union work force. Actually, this should help the organizing.

The year has 2010 started off slowly without much activity, except for the classroom training going on over at the UFT classrooms at 335 Adams Street. Classes are going well and, thanks to the space offered to us, there is room to stretch out in class – and this is a lot better than previous years. Registration is still going on, so call the union office if you want to sign up.

The topic this week is Personnel, so students should download the material needed and bring them to class.

Please note that, because we did not fill up the first set of weekend classes, there will NOT BE a second set of weekend classes starting in the middle of January.

The Personnel section of DCAS is still working on the numbers of filings for the Analyst exams. We’ll let you know when we do.