| OSA Newsline - October 30, 2023
I'm OSA Executive Board member and Grievance Director, Christina Chan.
Ukraine still lives.
We also recognize the profound and heartbreaking tragedies that are befalling individuals and communities in the Middle East. Our hearts go out to those affected.
The City delayed our last contract for four years. We would have settled in 2017, but the City kept delaying until 2021.
Our current contract ended on 09/05/21, but the City did not conclude pattern bargaining with DC37 until March 30, 2023. Thus, we were not allowed to bargain until a year and a half after the current contract ran out.
We bargained from Spring right throughout the Summer. After six months we were still not able to agree with the City's demands.
The City is holding up raises now worth over 9%, holding back the $3,000 signing bonus and refusing to let our members join the pilot project on work from home.
All of this is being done to get our bargaining team to agree to terms that are unfair to us. Instead, given our experience of a recent four-year delay imposed by the City from 2017-2021, we have chosen to call for mediation and, if needed, impasse. Our goal is to deny the City the option of stringing out negotiations for years to come.
Members do seem to understand why we lost patience with the City, but they are still calling to ask how long impasse will take.
We do not know.
We do know that negotiations with the City for the remainder of this five-year contract period is not an option.
Most recently, our legal team has conferenced with the Office of Collective Bargaining to start the mediation process. This Newsline will report on developments as they occur.
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| OSA Newsline - October 16, 2023
Ukraine still lives.
We also recognize the profound and heartbreaking tragedies that are befalling individuals and communities in the Middle East. Our hearts go out to those affected.
As for the update on the latest developments regarding our ongoing contract negotiations, in our previous agreement, we successfully raised the minimum salaries for several of our administrative titles.
This increase applied specifically to individuals hired or placed into these titles after July 1, 2021. It's worth noting that while this contractual raise of the minimum salary was an achievement, some agencies voluntarily chose to raise the minimum salaries for everyone in these titles, even for those who were already in these positions before July 2021. Importantly, this was a voluntary move by certain agencies, and they were not obligated to raise these salaries.
Now, the major roadblock in the approval of our new contract is coming from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is insisting that the union should cover the cost of these voluntary salary increases, dating back to 2021. This has understandably infuriated the union because these salary increases were a decision made by the agencies themselves. The question that arises is why the union should be forced to bear the financial responsibility for something the agencies chose to do two years ago?
To address this issue, we are actively engaged in discussions with City Hall to gain OMB's acceptance of the situation. Simultaneously, we have filed for impasse to ensure our members' interests are well-represented and protected throughout this process and without further unnecessary delay.
We will continue to keep you updated on the progress of these negotiations and any further developments.
There was a well attended General Membership meeting held on Thursday, October 12th. Thank you to all those who attended.
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| OSA Newsline - October 9, 2023
Ukraine still lives.
Our general membership meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, October 12th. At the meeting, we will give the details on the hold-up of our collective bargaining contract.
The hold-up is not good news, but we do have some good news for this Newsline.
The State is lowering the cost for Paid Family Leave. This past year, we paid .455% of salary to pay for PFL costs but, as of January 1st, the top rates will drop to .373%, a drop of .082%. That's 82 cents less deducted from every $1,000 paid you bi-weekly. Not a huge amount of money.
Annually, the most anyone can be asked to pay next year is $333.25 down $66.18 from this year's total of $399.43.
So, you will be saving a few dollars in insurance payments. Also, if you take a leave, the State will now reimburse you up to $1,151.16 weekly.
More detailed information about the State PFL Plan can be obtained using the following link, https://paidfamilyleave.ny.gov
Hope to see you at the meeting.
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| OSA Newsline - October 2, 2023
Ukraine still lives.
We have notified the City that their delay of our collective bargaining agreement over the past summer months is quite intolerable.
We were ready to settle as far back as May, yet the City keeps delaying. If the City is not willing to negotiate in good faith, we will seek impasse negotiations and an arbitrator.
The last contract between the City and OSA was delayed for the full four years of the contract by the City. It was not delayed by the union, but the City stalled throughout 2018 and 2019 and then hid behind COVID for another two years.
Well, we are not repeating that at this time. Going to arbitration is itself a slow process, but the City's failure to bargain seriously can be far worse.
A number of members do call in to blame the union for contract delays. We are not causing the contract delays and, for members to urge the union to settle on terms worse than DC37's is self-defeating. So, we are not doing that.
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