| OSA Newsline -- Special Update -- October 26, 2021
The seminar on navigating the civil service system originally scheduled for this evening at 6pm on Zoom has been moved from Zoom to this website as a pre-recorded presentation by OSA Executive Director Sheila Gorsky.
The hour-long presentation has been posted on the "Exams, Lists and Training" tab you can find to the left of your screen. Also posted are sixteen documents that Sheila discusses in her presentation. Take a look and read the material.
If you have questions, you can submit them to seminars@osaunion.org and we will get back to you with an answer.
Meantime, the Pensions 101 and Pre-Retirement seminars will go on as planned Wednesday and Thursday of this and next week. A Zoom link will be sent to those who signed up for a given seminar. Once you receive the email, please register on Zoom and a second email with a link to the seminar will be sent to you automatically.
The decision by Mayor de Blasio to mandate vaccinations for all City workers by October 29th was shocking. His offer to pay $500 seemed to parallel OSA's similar offer, but his offer is not retroactive for those already inoculated.
That was penny-wise and pound-foolish. He offered to commit to pay over $50 million dollars to those who had held out, but nothing to those who had heeded him earlier.
The municipal unions are properly angry. He has agreed to bargain the impact of his decision with us, but he has left precious little time for bargaining. This may well end up in the courts.
A second matter, which did end up in the courts, was the switch of our Medicare- eligible retirees into the new Medicare Advantage program.
We have thousands of retired members who have been entirely confused by the failure of the City and the "Alliance" Medicare Advantage company to properly explain and implement the new program.
Are retirees going to be allowed to keep their same doctors? Probably, almost certainly, but too many of our doctors are not even aware of what's going on.
It took years to negotiate this changeover and the final decision was reached only a couple of months ago. Emblemhealth and Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the winner of the competition, now called the Alliance, were not ready to implement the new program smoothly.
The judge has now ordered a delay in implementation of the program and we should know, by next week, the details.
The union staff and the OSARC retiree leadership are cheering the judge's decision. This was all happening too fast, with many unanswered questions.
Also, our union is proceeding to hold meetings to create contract demands for our uniformed force members in School Safety & Traffic Enforcement.
Finally, a mailing will go out shortly announcing our holiday party for December 16th. Also part of the mailing will be instructions on how to calculate the retroactive raises due for city agencies on 11/26 and for the NYC Housing Authority on 12/2.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
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| OSA Newsline -- Special Update -- October 14, 2021
Our "summer" mailing is at last on its way. It should arrive in members mailboxes by late next week. Meanwhile, members can speed matters up by viewing it online at osa.union.org. Just choose the tab for the OSA Newsletter.
If you go online, please check out the coupon called the "One Big Seminar Coupon." There are three seminars listed and the first one is for October 26th, so if you are interested, reply now.
Our other news concerns our retroactive pay and the possibility of putting some of it aside through the Deferred Compensation Plan.
The City has now informed us of the payroll dates for the retroactive money and the raises for City agencies and NYC Housing Authority. Here's what OLR told us: "Please be advised that the City pay date for the wage increases and retro pay resulting from the 2017-2021 Memorandum of Agreement has been scheduled for November 26, 2021. The NYCHA pay date is scheduled for December 2, 2021. The attached calendar is being provided to assist any of your members wishing to make changes to their Deferred Compensation Plan deduction rates ahead of that pay date. Further, pay dates for employees at NYC Health + Hospitals, as well as the Department of Education, are yet to be determined."
The calendar OLR provided only includes the Deferred Comp deadlines for City agencies: October 26th. The deadline for adjusting payroll deductions for NYCHA is November 2, 2021. In any case, you may want to take care of this prior to the deadline dates in case you have any difficulties in making any change.
The City promises an update as soon as possible on pay dates for New York City Health + Hospitals and DOE.
To view the payroll calendar with instructions about changing your Deferred Compensation Plan contributions, click on the link below:
Deferred Compensation Plan Payroll Calendar And Instructions For City Agencies
We will update the newsline with any additional information.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
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| OSA Newsline -- October 11, 2021
The City has informed us that the raises will come through in November, either on the 12th or the 26th. While this information is welcome, it does not constitute certainty.
The City does, often, meet its payroll dates, but not always. Also, different branches can lag behind, so the City agencies might arrive on time, but HHC or NYCHA might be late - or not.
One bit of advice, repeated by unions to their members for as long as we have had unions, is always correct. Please do not spend it until you get it.
Otherwise, Happy Columbus Day or Happy Indigenous Peoples Day or just happy day off.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
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| OSA Newsline -- October 4, 2021
Our friends at Administrative Services Only (ASO) have run into a strange problem. Many members, as a part of their response to our offer of a Health Benefit Award, are sending in their actual vaccination cards. That is bad because members may need those cards for other purposes.
ASO will be quite satisfied with copies of those cards as proof of vaccination, so do not send the actual card. Those cards already sent in will be returned to the members who sent them in.
Also, many members have been calling to learn the progress of their claim. That's not needed. Members can go to asonet.com and click on "claim status."
ASO is processing the claims and sending them out in batches of 500 at a time.
Finally, the City says they are still on track to pay us the retroactive salary increases this month or next. Let's assume November and we'll try our best to get an exact date, if we can.
If you would like to listen to this newsline as an audio file, please click on this link:
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