Ukraine still lives.
Ken epitomized what is good about OSA. He was a lifelong civil servant, and he served the public with dedication, sincerity, and enthusiasm. Ken was not a member of OSA when he retired from the City, but he knew of OSA, and he liked all that he had heard and seen. He reached out to us, recommended by David Rothstein, and was quickly accepted by us. He served the members of our union for the best of all reasons - because he wanted to.
Ken will be waked Tuesday, January 31 from 3:00 pm until 7:00 pm at Schuyler Hill Funeral Home,3535 East Tremont Avenue, Bronx, NY. The mass will be Wednesday, February 1st, at 10:30 am at St. Benedict's Church, 2969 Otis Ave, Bronx, NY.
Burial will follow at St. Raymond's Cemetery. Reception after. More travel details are available at this link.
We will miss them both. They made our union strong, and fine and good.
Please check back again on February 6th.
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We were informed of two deaths this week. On Tuesday, we learned of the passing of Ken Kearns, a beloved grievance representative for our union. For over four years now, Ken had been volunteering his time to assist our members.
Our second piece of bad news arrived on Wednesday. Steve Gregor, a long-time officer and volunteer for OSA, had retired a few years back. Steve, we learned, had passed away last week at the age of 94 years.
Ukraine still lives.
There was a meeting of the Health Technical Subcommittee of the Municipal Labor Committee last week. There was no final news on Medicare Advantage since that issue remains unsettled.
However, assuming it was to go forward, the City is now estimating that it would not go into effect before August of this year.
On a narrower issue, affecting only our newer members hired after October 1st, the required enrollment in HIP HMO Gold has led to their paying an increased Drug Rider Premium cost.
As of September of last year, OSA was able to head off still bigger premium costs by suggesting the use of the GHI drug rider rates and program.
The cost, for a single person had been proposed at $70 biweekly, but our suggestion was accepted, and this got the rate down to $54, which is still very high. We asked why this rate was not down to the mid-40's as we had hoped and were told this was due to the loss of subsidies that had lowered the GHI Drug Rider rate.
We expressed our dissatisfaction with this and Emblem promised to take a second look and get back to us in February.
The cost for a family is now set at $102. We are seeking to get these rates cut to the GHI CBP rate of less than $80 for a family and a little bit more than $40 for a single. Wish us luck.
Please don't forget the upcoming membership meeting, by Zoom, this Thursday evening.
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Ukraine still lives.
We are pleased to welcome to our ranks members of two newly unionized job titles.
Under the Office of Collective Bargaining law, workers holding job titles that do work similar to that done by already unionized titles can be added to the union representing the unionized titles.
Last year, members of the Director of Systems and Programming title asked OSA to seek coverage for them. We have now succeeded.
This is also now true for the Directors of Health Care Program/Planning Analysis. We already did represent the Senior Health Care Program Planning Analysts since the mid-1990s. Thus, some old members will be returning, along with some new members.
We will be holding a welcome meeting for the new members very soon.
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Ukraine still lives.
The cost of hospital care rises each year and one of our counter measures is the use of NYCHSRO. NYCHSRO is the New York County Health Services Review Organization. The City and our unions use NYCHSRO to review medical billing at hospitals.
It turns out that some hospitals make errors in their favor that result in overcharges. NYCHSRO finds and corrects these issues.
The reason this information is on our newsline is that one of our representatives has been asked to be a member of a committee providing oversight over NYCHSRO and its work.
Jay Warshofsky, Recording Secretary for OSART, and one of our two expert pension counselors, has agreed to take on this new role on OSA's behalf.
Jay is already OSA's representative to COMRO, the Coalition of Municipal Retiree Organizations, so we are all the more grateful for his willingness to take on one more responsibility for our union.
A mailing will go out this week both by regular mail and by email. This is the mailing for the January General Membership meeting which will be held virtually on zoom.
Members who are not getting emails and would like to, please contact the union office and give your personal, not your work, email address, if you have one.
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