This month's mailing should have arrived. If it did not, call George at the union office and he will check your address and send you a copy.

The mailing contains a lot, but it also includes a notice of our general membership meeting scheduled for this Thursday, January 30, 2020.

The regular meeting starts at 6pm sharp and ends with dinner being provided. However, by 7:15pm those enrolled in Activists Classroom Training will reconvene.

This second meeting will provide two guest speakers plus details of OSA's involvement with the Municipal Credit Union.

It should be an interesting meeting and we hope to see you there.

If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:

AUDIO - January 27, 2020

Today, we honor the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King and the union office is closed.

The City did get back to us about further negotiations. They are now looking to mid-February. Sure. We'll be there.

More immediate is the start of training classes for the Administrative Staff Analyst exam. If you are coming on Tuesday, January 21st, please download and complete the registration form you will find at the following link: Registration Form - 2020 Administrative Staff Analyst Exam Training

The January newsletter should have arrived at your home this weekend as the mailing house sent it out last Monday. Our general membership meeting is set for Thursday, January 30th and the mailing is fairly extensive. It is already posted on this website as the January OSA Newsletter.

If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:

AUDIO - January 20, 2020

The City has not yet scheduled a further date for negotiations, so we will continue to be impatiently patient.

We did, however, have a good meeting with Dr. Mitchell Katz, head of New York City Health + Hospitals. We brought up a number of key issues.

First, our MetroPlus Nurses. H+H demanded an extra half hour of work daily for no extra pay from them over a year ago.

They were not yet members of OSA at the time, but they voted to choose us for their union last summer. We began to argue against that unpaid half hour immediately. Subsequently, we made our case to Dr. Talia Schwartz, the new head of MetroPlus and she did respond somewhat sympathetically. This week, the matter came before Dr. Katz and his reaction was also sympathetic.

We left the meeting with the hope that we will be able to resolve this matter without litigation.

Next, we argued for a promotional exam to Associate Staff Analyst fo our H+H titles that are similar to Analysts in duties. We pointed out that many of our Systems Analysts and equivalent titles from Health and Mental Hygiene were allowed to take the recent ASA exam on a promotional basis. They agreed to talk further about this.

Finally, we brought up the other H+H Administrative Nurses, who are seeking our help to gain union status.

Dr. Katz did agree that money should not be wasted on lawyers fighting over nurses who were not even supervising other nurses. Since many of our H+H Administrative Nurses have no supervisory role, ths is a positive development.

Note: For those individuals taking the Administrative Staff Analyst exam in February, the registration coupon for OSA's late January training course is now posted on this website in the "Exams, Lists and Training" page in the section for the 2020 Administrative Staff Analyst Exam.

If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:

AUDIO - January 13, 2020

The City met with us on the 30th of December. This was a technical meeting on financial details. The City had given us numbers as to the value of our equity award and how much we could buy with those funds. For example, what will it cost to add $250 per member to the Welfare Fund payments.

Now, we did get those numbers last year and we were ready to settle, but since the City was not, many months have gone by. However, since our membership changes composition over the months, there was a need to refresh the numbers.

We did not expect much change and there was not much, but now the numbers are spelled out to four decimal points. Fine.

The City has promised another meeting - and soon. They are promising a meeting in January, date and time not yet set by them. We will be there, day, night or weekend.

Meanwhile, we do have other work to do and we are doing it.

OSA's education section will be giving training for the upcoming Administrative Staff Analyst exam, which is supposed to start February 10th. The exam was put off from last fall.

The training will start January 21st for two weeks, with each topic being taught on one evening. Registration forms will be available some time next week on the website and will also be included in the upcoming mailing.

As usual, members are free and others will have to pay $97.50.

Our grievance section had a lovely victory as 2019 came to a close. Assistant General Counsel Nora Sullivan has reported on a major victory affecting 16 of our members very positively.

OSA won an arbitration award for seven former members of the School Safety and Traffic Enforcement Unit related to retroactive back pay for work they performed before the 2008-2017 contract had settled. The City took the position that the members were not entitled to retroactive pay, because by the time the retro pay was being implemented (years after it had been earned), the members were no longer in the OSA bargaining unit.

OSA took the position that as the payments were for work performed while the members were still in the unit, they were entitled to it.The arbitrator agreed with OSA.

This decision was soon followed by a settlement for another nine former members with a similar grievance. Altogether, the arbitration award and settlement give our brothers and sisters $382,277 in back pay. Individual awards range from $9,405 to $36,925 per person, depending on the length of time in the unit, base salary, overtime and number of missed installments. The average individual payout totals $24,261 per person. That's a nice victory.

If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:

AUDIO - January 6, 2020