We wish a happy holiday to all of our members who are celebrating any one of the several holidays that are occurring this week.
Now, for a very long newsline.
We did have a collective bargaining session on Zoom this week. It was not a full session, but a sort of update technical meeting, and it was far from satisfactory. Yes, they do have the money to pay us, but we knew that already.
Now, however, they would like to offer us a "bare bones" 43-month contract which would expire on March 24, 2021. In other words, they are offering a contract that would expire last week. All of our prior negotiations over the past few years have discussed extending our contract to bring it in line at minimum with DC37's contract dates or to go further yet, to add additional longevities to members' salaries.
Oh, we would get the pattern raises of 2%, 2.25%, and 3%, but neither raises nor retroactive payments would be available to be paid to us until after the fiscal year started, July 1st at the earliest.
If the City considers this to be good faith bargaining, we do not. Fortunately, we have already brought a case for failure to bargain before the Office of Collective Bargaining. Those cases move slowly, but they do move. The City will have time to reconsider its unattractive offer.
We thought we were being wise to litigate. Turns out, we were.
There is a more immediate issue before us, this week.
The City plans to reopen its offices partially between May 1st and May 31st. At the meeting between the City and the Municipal Labor Committee, OSA protested that June 1st would be a safer start date since President Biden said that there would be vaccinations for all who wanted them by that date.
It turns out, the City had an answer.
Actually, the City had a lot of answers. The main answer is a procedure compiled by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to guide the agencies as they reopen. It is a 40-page book and since we are posting it at this link, consider it an open book exam. There is no study required, until some aspect of the reopening seems wrong to you. For now, just glance at it lightly.
But wait, there is still more. Each agency will now hand tailor the DCAS guidelines to conform to their particular needs and, yet still further down the line, local bosses might wisely or unwisely exercise their discretion on the application of all these rules.
All of this could make for a lot of phone calls to our union.
Still, we do have their guidelines and DCAS has done a good job of trying to anticipate every issue. It is, finally, an impossible job, but they made a good start. What can go wrong? We will find out and correct it as we go.
There are many safety measures outlined in the DCAS guide. Much cleaning, safe spacing, hand and desk cleansing, even staggered work hours and days, where practical. Double masking from morning to night is advised, and quite uncomfortable, to be honest.
And yet, all of these measures will be followed unevenly. There will be a rush hour before and after work. There will be many failures to take care.
So then, where are our vaccines?
The health authorities say that those persons fully vaccinated are safe and, if a high enough percentage of us get the shot, herd immunity will kick in.
That's all fine and good, but OSA has many members who are not yet able to get vaccinated and yet are being told to return to work.
Again, the City had an answer.
As of now, there are five public sites, one per borough, where a City employee can get their shot for the asking. You will find information about those sites at this link, along with instructions on how to apply for your shot. Since we get time off to go and comp time for having gone, it seems to answer OSA's objection, if it works.
Now, if it does not work, we have a fall back plan for next week. Suppose you try to register and they are overloaded. OK, by next week's newsline we will have a deal set up with the Vaccine Command Center of New York to find more sites that will be specifically for OSA members. A procedure will be available to ensure that all those willing to be vaccinated are served.
Suppose you don't try to register because you have questions and want more information. Good. In that case, email vaccine@osaunion.org and tell us you wish to attend a teleconference with a health care professional. This would be a sort of Zoom townhall meeting where your questions would be answered. If no one emails us, we won't bother with the teleconference, but the Vaccine Command Center offered this service and some members might find it valuable.
The City lockdown last March was a bit ragged and the City was not smoothly functioning until June. This reopening seems to be better thought out.
The union urges all of our members to get vaccinated and it is our hope that, if enough of us do, we will be able to crush COVID-19 and be back to a new normal by the Fall.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
The City reached out to us late last week and indicated that they are open to a resumption of bargaining on our contract. As you would expect, our only response was: when? Soon, apparently.
Members should not become overexcited over this. The City was moving slowly on our contract even before COVID stopped everything, so we are wary. Still, we can be hopeful.
Our March mailing is due out electronically later this week on this website. The actual hard copy on paper and in envelopes will take another week or more to arrive in mailboxes. Still, we are aware that many of our members prefer regular mail and that makes these mailings worthwhile.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
The national news was good this week. There is a considerable amount of federal aid coming our way. The amount being sent to resolve state, city and local problems due to Covid-19 seems to be adequate.
As members might expect, in the midst of all the good news, we reached out to the City to learn if we were a part of that good news.
We were told to await developments and we will. Still, if all is well fiscally for now, there should no longer be a need for us to be "going to court" against the City's failure to bargain. They should complete bargaining as soon as possible. We are more than ready
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
This Sunday, March 14th, marks the anniversary of the first death of a New York City resident from Covid-19. The City will host an online memorial for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have passed away during the pandemic. If you would like more information about this Sunday's memorial and/or to contribute a photo and a name of a lost loved one which may become part of the memorial, you can go to this page on the City's website. For submission of photos and information for possible inclusion in Sunday's memorial you can go directly to this link.
Our intention to post all the details of our unfair labor practice petition on our website ran into a technical glitch last week. The full pdf file (41 pages) does not load fully on some types of devices, especially IPads and IPhones. Here's a workaround: With this webpage open in Safari, hold on the link in the text of the March 1st Newsline until a menu appears. One of the choices is "Download Linked File." Tap on that. Then, find the icon for downloads (a circle with an arrow pointing down) in the upper right hand corner on the screen and find the file. Tap on it and the entire document opens and can be read on screen in its entirety. A similar procedure works in Firefox and in other browsers.
Otherwise, it was a quiet week last week.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
Last week, we filed an improper practice charge against the City for failure to bargain. This led to some inquiries as to what that meant so, this week, we have posted the petition for relief and background evidence and arguments on this website. Go to this link to connect to the documents.
Last week, also, the Municipal Labor Committee focused on coming changes to our retirees' health plans. Due to changes set in place by the federal government, new Medicare programs began. Our current program is a Medigap program, but the new programs will be Medicare Advantage programs.
Our representatives on the Health Technical Subcommittee of the MLC have been working on this change for over a year. Now, as their work is nearing completion, the assembled unions are anxious to know how this will affect us. We did learn a lot last week and details will be shared in a future mailing. Negotiations have reduced the number of companies bidding to serve us down to two and we should know more soon. One point that was reassuring was that we expect to be able to continue to use our current doctors, and this is important.
This week we will be dealing with concerns over the planned transfer of School Safety from the Police Department to the Department of Education. We do not believe that this proposed change was well thought out and we are concerned on how this will be implemented, if it is.
In addition, we are running into a Covid-19 problem at the Department of Transportation building out in Queens. Our Supervisors of Traffic Device Maintenance are facing repeated cases of Covid showing up, followed by a deep cleaning of the building. Then the problem repeats. This is bad and we are seeking other remedies.
Finally, the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, which offers MA level programs in Labor Studies and BA level programs in Urban and Community Studies, offers the Joseph S Murphy Scholarship For Diversity in Labor to eligible applicants to its MA and BA programs. You can download a flyer that outlines the scholarships and directs you to a phone number and website where you can learn more about the programs available at the school and the procedures to apply for the scholarships by clicking this link. The deadline for application to the program is late this week, but you can familiarize yourself with the program and the scholarship, even if you are unable to pursue it this year.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
OSA Newsline -- March 22, 2021 OSA Newsline -- March 15, 2021 OSA Newsline -- March 11, 2021 
OSA Newsline -- March 8, 2021 OSA Newsline -- March 1, 2021