DC37 plans to attempt collective bargaining this September, but do not raise your hopes.

The mayor most recently went to court against the City Council, insisting they were limiting his powers by seeking to require $10 an hour be paid to persons working on city funded endeavors.

This is the mayor who can order you not to smoke nor drink large cups of soda, who can create pedestrian malls and bike lanes without consulting community planning boards and yet he does not have enough power?

Look, if he is going to give a friend a million or more dollars of our taxpayer money, for some project he loves, the least he can do is let us have some say in how our money is spent. You would think.

Against that backdrop, our planned September negotiation doesn’t appear promising, since the mayor is already paying us more than $10 an hour and is clearly anxious to reduce our salaries.

Members who wish to show their dissatisfaction with the mayor’s attack on us should be ready to march in the Labor Day Parade and to march proudly. We have nothing to fear if we stand together, but we must stand together.

Finally, the open competitive Staff and Associate Staff Analyst lists are now moving and, if you get a notice of a pool, please call Michael Schady at the union office 212-686-1229 so we can stay on top of the process.

As you are probably aware, Con Edison has locked out 8,500 members of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America. This is a part of the ongoing war on the middle class. It used to be that working for Con Edison, was a dangerous and difficult job, but one, in terms of salary and benefits that was a good job as well. Now, the Committee to Save New York and Con Edison have decided to save money on those workers and they figure that so long as we, personally, are not affected, we will not care. Well, we do care!

The rich get richer and they keep on squeezing the middle class. And now it’s the turn of the Con Edison workers. OSA supports our brothers and sisters of the Utility Workers Union in their hour of trial.

One way you can support them is by turning out for what promises to be a rather large rally and march tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday, July 17th) in front of Con Edison's headquarters at 4 Irving Place near 14th Street. Assembly will begin at 4:30pm at the picket line and the march will take place at 5:30pm to Union Square.

You can download a flyer about the rally and march by clicking this link.

Our union now has a special project concerning City procurement. We would like to hear from any of our members if they have a background in procurement for the city or their agency.

If you do, call Tim Collins or John Mazzarella at the union office and, if they are not there, call Sheila Gorsky or Katie Guarino. Your help will be appreciated.

Sherman Gould has been representing OSA at the planning meetings for the Labor Day Parade. The event is now set for Saturday, September 8th and we get to sleep late because assembly time for us is 11:00 to 11:30am. More details in the summer mailing.

Also, on Thursday, July 12, you are invited to a pre-screening of the movie “Harvest of Empire.” The movie is being premiered at DC37 at 6pm and is free to our members. The address is 125 Barclay Street. Bring your own popcorn. The subtitle for the film is “The Untold Story of Latinos in America.” You can download a flyer to remind you at this link.

The reason we are mentioning a film that’s two weeks away is that our newsline now slows down to biweekly for the months of July and August. The next newsline message will be in two weeks barring urgent news.

Recently, OSA's Political Action Committee hosted fundraisers for City Councilmember Sara Gonzalez and candidate Andy King. At the event, reporter Marc Bussanich of LaborPress interviewed a number of those attending, including OSA Chair Bob Croghan, Municipal Labor Committee head Harry Nespoli and Councilmember Gonzalez.

Below, we post the interviews with all three:

Bob Croghan

Harry Nespoli

Councilmember Sara Gonzalez