Hope you are having a good Memorial Day weekend. The news this week concerns OSA’s newsletter to our members. The letter is written, typed, proofed and sent out.

If you would like to read it, you can go to the OSA Newsletter page of this website. The entire letter is there, electronically.

For those who prefer a hard copy, your mailing will arrive by early or the middle of next week – the week of June 4th.

We have a problem. Many of our members are technophilic and prefer e-mail or the web over snail mail every time.

However, many of our other members are technophobic and resist learning new systems and much prefer a neat letter on real paper to any electronic communication.

So, as a result, OSA sends our messages out electronically and in print as well, for now.

Eventually, of course, the shift to electronic communication may become absolute but, by then, further innovations may also come along.

Meanwhile, members will get the best of both worlds, for now – either a really quick message by e-mail or on the website or a neat, clear hard copy of a letter about ten days later.

We aim to please.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO May 28, 2018

The normal May membership meeting has been delayed to June 21st due to the Staff Analyst Trainee test preparation course.

In return for this delay, we may have a bit more news on negotiations and we will have some excellent guest speakers. Sam “Nana” Osei Bonsu, an officer of the Municipal Credit Union will be addressing the meeting on the recent doings at the MCU.

Then, for the Activist Classroom Training which follows, we will have Stanley Hill, longtime union activist and former head of District Council 37.

So, the meeting was delayed but, in turn, it looks to be a very interesting meeting.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO May 21, 2018

The recent news regarding the Municipal Credit Union was of interest. Their CEO was determined to have gone wrong on about 3 million dollars due to a gambling problem. This is sad, but our members can note that, given the size of the Credit Union, the impact of his wrongdoing will not be noticed by the depositors.

Members who have been with us for over ten years may remember an earlier issue with the MCU. At that time, our union led the successful effort to stop some serious errors that the Credit Union was falling into.

The Credit Union is a valuable institution serving New York City civil servants. Still, like all such institutions, it is a good idea to be vigilant always to ensure that wrongdoing does not creep in to destroy that which we value and need.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO May 14, 2018

Last week, there was a meeting of the Municipal Labor Committee. There were two major topics discussed. First, the unions are expecting the Supreme Court to rule against agency shop fees this month or early next. It will mean a reduction in union strength, but we will survive it.

The second topic was negotiations. The City had opened negotiations seeking to obtain 1.2 billion dollars in ongoing health give backs. This naturally meant that our Health Technical Subcommittee had to study the City’s demands carefully. In their report back to us, we learned that there were many give backs that just would cost us money, such as a $2,500 deductible for a hospital visit. Even more interesting was that the City’s arithmetic seemed to be off by 400 million dollars of savings so, had we agreed to all the offensive changes, we would still owe the City more.

In short, the City’s opening demands and offers were not serious.

We are proceeding, as we should, with negotiations and there are some health savings that we would embrace, although nothing like the City’s initial demands.

More crucially, we reject the City’s offer of one percent a year as entirely inadequate and unjustified in light of the City’s current prosperity. We expect and need more.

If you'd like to listen to this week's newsline as an audio file, click on this link:

AUDIO May 7, 2018