[New York] This thread is technically a bodega

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [New York] This thread is technically a bodega

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

gobbagool posted:

Nope. Acknowledging the reality that downstate nanny types love to tell the rest of us what to do

You seem fun.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 02:20

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 06:22

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

apparently when subway announcements talk about "train traffic," it usually means that they're spacing the trains evenly for god knows what reason

They do this both to close gaps in service and to create headway between trains so that trains can actually move. If they don't respond or adjust service at all even relatively minor delays will quickly cripple an entire line.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 06:59

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

I'm almost certain that the Cranberry Tube repair (the Manhattan/Brooklyn tunnel for the A and C trains) was supposed to have been finished at the end of last year, and hardly a weekend went by when they weren't redirected on the F line. It's almost six months later and they're still regularly doing the same repairs that were supposed to already have been finished. Same thing with the G train tunnel- every other weekend, people have to take a shuttle bus from Bedford/Nostrand to Long Island City, and I think that was supposed to have already been finished.

Does the state pay MTA workers to go underground and sit with their thumbs up their asses?

Worse, they give the vast majority of overhaul work to contractors.

Less glibly, almost nothing gets done on time in the MTA. The damage is usually worse than billed, doing work piecemeal one or two days a week while it's still deteriorating isn't the most efficient, and we don't have the in-house personnel to do all of the overhaul and rebuild work that is necessary.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 00:10

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

this makes more sense. btw is it ok if i crossposted your takedown of that six-point plan to improve the subway from the LAN thread? it's a good read

go nuts, though I didn't really consider it a take down. I thought I tried to respond to even handedly.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 16:37

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

Fernando Cabrera needs a little backstory. He's a city councilman for a northern district in the Bronx. He's an evangelical minister, once worked for Focus on the Family, and is a hardcore theocrat. In other words, he's a Felder- or Diaz Sr.-style conversative Democrat. On two occasions (2014 and 2016) he primary challenged state senator Gustavo Rivera, a progressive Democrat who became the primary sponsor of NY Health when Bill Perkins left for the City Council. I'm not sure what his motivation was for Cabrera's first run, but I suspect it was because Jeff Klein doesn't like Rivera and wanted him out. The second time was because a group of charter school billionaires gave him and three challengers for State Assembly a bunch of money because their four targets voted against a charter school measure. Rivera won handily both times, and the charter school candidates went 0-for-4 in 2016. It was during his first challenge that people found out his homophobic past.

Currently, Rivera is trying to get his revenge and is supporting Randy Abreu as a primary challenger. He's supposedly progressive, but he's also fresh from DC, so that makes me a bit skeptical. Nonetheless, he also has the support of the WFP, which is always comes into play. There's also a socialist primary candidate named Justin Sanchez, but I've heard no word on whether DSA NYC has endorsed him (they've already endorsed two Brooklyn candidates, so there may be something behind this).

I want to believe Cabrera will be out on his rear end next year, but I have no idea about the district's trends.

Cabrera is my councilman and he is a piece of crap. I cannot tell you how fast I signed to get Abreu on the ballot.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 15:05

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

machine politics is your answer

in my district, lander is running unopposed and he's decent, i suppose. if i lived a few blocks east i'd have mathieu eugene, who does nothing and is disliked but will win by splitting the primary vote

if anybody is in east harlem and parts of the south bronx, don't vote for rodriguez. also don't vote for diaz sr. or cabrera (who was a republican but switched)

i heard that gustavo rivera doesn't have his picture up at bronx dem HQ, which means he's doing something right

My plan was to vote for Abreu over Cabrera, because holy poo poo Cabrera is awful. Abreu seems fine but i want to vote for whoever has the best shot at unseating that man.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 09:50

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

GalacticAcid posted:

DSA is doing a forum on the constitutional convention.

Facebook event is here -----> Con Con Forum

I can tell you TWU and most Unions I know of are very fearful of how a convention would go, and urging us to vote against it.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 23:47

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

Why not organize your union with other unions across the state and put into the new constitution mandatory collective bargaining and pensions?

The unions' political analysts seem to think that we will lose that fight. I mean, we can probably expect the convention to be slightly tilted towards Democrats, so, we'll have an argument between rabidly anti labor Republicans and sort of blithely pro corporate Democrats. That's not a something capital-L Labor is going to enjoy.

Edit: I mean I desperately want to be optimistic and think we could do well out of a constitutional convention but given that there is not actually an active pro-labor party in this state, it doesn't seem like this is a great time. Virtually no one in my union trusts Democrats to represent the interests of working people at this point.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 00:48

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

Well they shouldn't trust democrats, but given the unique man-power and cooperation that unions have, and they way that each county sends a representative to the convention, you don't really need to depend on either party to represent your interests at a Con-Con. You guys can do it yourselves!

And while you are at it you can put Ranked-choice instant run-off in the new constitution so that the two-party system in New York State politics is dismantled.

Pretty sure the math on that one county one vote also fucks us. Hamilton County and its 4300 residents will have as much power as Kings County and its 2.5 million residents. It might be bad. Can Labor carry 32/62 counties? Almost certainly not. Can right to work gently caress you got mine republicans? Quite possibly.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 01:10

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

If you assume everything is bad and will always be bad, and do nothing to change it even when given the opportunity, then guess what, you've created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This isn't everything. This is one thing. Unions ought to do more to further genera leftist aims but the organizing apparatus for a statewide electoral fight does not exist, and it's very unlikely that an effective one can be implemented in time for the convention. And the resources spent on that effort would detract from current priorities which more directly and immediately impact the various memberships.

It's okay for unions to be against this convention. It's not the same as being paralyzed by pessimism.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 11:41

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

When every single labor organization in the state is against something I don't understand how any serious leftist can be for it. NY DSA has a lot of support for the convention too, though the Labor Branch very strongly opposes. I get the frustration with the state senate, it's a mess for sure. But I don't understand how you can simultaneously believe it's possible to organize in the senate districts to get reformers to a convention but not to get them into the Senate.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 03:40

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

get that OUT of my face posted:

i'm not too well versed on this whole thing but what i got from NKD was that current pension agreements are safe and ironclad. future ones stand to lose a lot. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

other statistics from that poll i linked: democrats oppose the convention 2-to-1, republicans and independents oppose it 3-to-1, a slight plurality oppose it in NYC, and Long Island and upstate massively oppose it. here's hoping people actually remember to flip the ballot over

Currently the State Constitution bars the state from downgrading a worker's pension once that worker has been enrolled in the pension program. They can (and do) create worse pension tiers for newer employees. There are still a handful of Tier I folks working--their pension is half their pay in their highest paid year, and they do not have any payroll contribution to the pension fund. The bulk of people I'm aware of right now are Tier 4. They need 25 years of service and need to be 55 years old to retire. They have a flat contribution rate (I think 2%?) and their pension is based on the average of their 3 best consecutive years. They also cannot have more than a 10% increase in pay year over year for pension purposes. People like me are Tier VI. Most of Tier VI has to be 62 years old to retire and has to work 30 years. Some places like MTA and the Court Police are still 25/55. We pay a variable portion of our salary--up to 7% into the pension. This rate is determined by the previous year's salary, and stupidly is not a marginal rate. So you can actually do the thing that people who don't understand income taxes worry about, where you'll have less take home if you make very slightly more than a threshold value than if you make very slightly less.

Moving all workers onto Tier VI would absolutely be on the table at a Convention.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2017 12:31

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

haveblue posted:

Why isn't the pied-a-terre tax an option

A vacancy tax on all residential units would be such a tremendous good for the city, I don't know why the idea never gains any traction . (I know why it never gains any traction.)

# ¿ Nov 29, 2017 04:20

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Edit: more Cuomo nonsense:

https://twitter.com/danrivoli/status/955076869711433729

I just posted about this in the LAN thread, blaming ConEd has a lot of angles to it.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 18:21

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Absurd Alhazred posted:

You should cross-post it here, it's good stuff.

I always thought crossposting was frowned upon on these Something Awful dot com forums, but sure.

grah posted:

http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/new-york/mta-brass-pushed-link-subway-delays-power-problems-article-1.3769202

Shocking news guys, MTA brass is full of poo poo!

(There are legitimate issues with how we take power from ConEd and use it, and the bullshit here cuts both ways as well. MTA managers blamed ConEd as a way of passing the buck--but it's not really their fault that upgrades are so far behind, the money has never been there for real system wide upgrades. At the same time, Cuomo used this "ConEd is the problem" line to bypass collective bargaining agreements about outside contractors. If ConEdison is paying the contractors instead of the MTA, then Local 100 has no standing to claim the work could or should be done in-house. Even though most of the work they're doing--replacing god drat fuses and bootleg pins--is totally within in house capability. It let Cuomo go around the Union (even as the union kissed his rear end as hard as it could and attacked DeBlasio for no really good reason other than cozying up to Cuomo more) and get private contractors onto the property en masse. And he gets to ConEdison with most of the bill for it. )

And on TWU support for Cuomo:

grah posted:

There's a lot of pieces to this. The biggest is that the main body of more radical, left aligned union leadership, Progressive Action, was and largely is still the party of Roger Toussaint. Toussaint was popular, especially among black union members and the Department of Busses, which are two (overlapping) gigantic parts of the Local's constituency. But he also had a huge air of corruption about him, made a lot of personal enemies, and managed to alienate a lot of the union--including in Busses. He oversaw the bankruptcy of TWU's health benefit trust and the transfer of control to the MTA, and he oversaw a very questionable sale of the union hall in Manhattan. Selling the hall and buying something cheaper in downtown Brooklyn made some sense, and honestly I don't know all the truth o what happened, but the consensus among a lot of union rank and file is that the building was sold on the cheap to Toussaint's friends or relatives. He also oversaw the disastrous 2-day strike in 2005, which is the only time TWU has ever gone out on strike and come back to a worse deal than was on offer beforehand.

Because of all this, Progressive Action's name, for an entire generation of Transit Workers, is mud. And his political heirs in people like Joe Campbell have not done themselves any favors on that account. Shut out of power, they've become almost a joke--they criticize everything the union does, and blame everything bad that ever happens on John Samuellson, Tony Utano, and Stand United, the current political party in charge of the union.

In the best of times, Union politics in TWU are not great. Elections run on a slate system, and it is very difficult to win even relatively minor office without the support of Stand United right now. Incumbency is powerful, and Progressive Action is not easy to take seriously as an alternative to Stand United, who, until recently, have been pretty okay for the Union.

There's also a huge racial component to all this which I am not super equipped to unpack. Near as I can tell, Toussaint had enough stink about him, to ultimately split the black vote, and Campbell lacks the separation from him or the personal charisma to put back together the coalition that got Progressive Action in power in the first place. Stand United's leadership is largely white, though that is gradually changing.

Stand United is not exactly right wing. They endorsed Sanders in the Democratic Primary and no one in the General presidential election. They believe in some broad sense in labor power and the parts of leftism immediately adjacent to that, but they're more like slightly-left-Liberals than anything.

Tony Utano is the current head of the Local, and he's a good guy in a lot of ways. I like him personally, and he absolutely wants the best he can get for the rank and file. But he, and Stand United in general, believe that the best way to accomplish that is to have good relationships with management and the governor. They turned on DeBlasio because it was an easy way to get in with the governor, and the truth is DeBlasio has no power to really hurt Local 100 if the governor is on board. He just doesn't have the level of control over the MTA board--and consequently he can't really help them either. So if TWU was going to take a side in the DeBlasio-Cuomo feud, backing DeBlasio was kind of a non-starter. It would be spiting the guy that has real control over salary and contract negotiations and budgetary issues. They probably should have just stayed the hell out of it.

Stand United isn't radical in quite the way Progressive Action was. They don't have a sense of wider solidarity with the labor movement. I think pension reform is a really good example. New York State created Tier VI of its pension system some years back. This was done legislatively, signed by Cuomo (of course), and is a serious weakening of the pension system. It increases the retirement age, increases worker contribution to as high as 6% of gross salary (from a flat 2% previously), drastically limits how much overtime pay is pensionable, and increases the service time necessary to qualify for a pension, among other things. But TWU was one of a small number of groups exempted from the age and time increases. There is still a (anemic, in my opinion) campaign by TWU to push back Tier VI to be in line with the older pension system. I suggested to Tony Utano once that we work with the other unions in the state to create a broad based unified push in Albany, and the response I got was, almost verbatim "why would we want to waste our energy fighting to get them [other unions] what we've already got? When they get to where we are, we'll fight with them for something better, but right now we are only concerned with improving pensions for TWU".

And that's kind of the whole problem with them. They mean well by the union, and I can understand there's a degree to which you have to prioritize your own membership over members of other unions. But that's really small thinking, and it hurts both TWU and wider labor in the long run. And the truth is that a big component of them not pushing too hard on Tier VI is that they don't want to upset Cuomo. And this kind of mentality is how they do business up and down the ladder. They prefer to avoid fights and maintain the best relationships they can with management.

I'm all for maintaining good relationships with bosses whe you can, but sometimes Stand United forgets that the bosses are not our friends. And now they're stuck in this huge mess, because they basically unilaterally abdicated their ability to criticize or seriously push back against Cuomo. It's kind of a disappointing mess.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 20:07

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Hey, quick question to settle an argument: do working-class New Yorkers drive into Manhattan? Is there information about the socio-economic profile of people who do this? I've always assumed anybody who possibly could, unless they're celebrities or in finance or whatever, use the subways, buses, LIRR, etc.

If I have to go to Brooklyn or Queens, I might drive, because the trains from the Bronx to some parts of BK or Queens are like, 2 hours, and driving through Manhattan is toll free and usually significantly faster.

Sometimes my wife drives to work down by the Battery if she's running late or needs to go somewhere right afterwards.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 18:08

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

DoctorWhat posted:

can anyone here put me in contact with anyone willing and able to help me unionize my small workplace?

What's your industry? There's like half a dozen dsa goons in here who could put you in touch with someone at Labor Branch who could probably help (including me).

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 06:40

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Actually Cuomo is exactly as bad as Trump, I can tell because I hate him exactly as much (a lot, I hate them both a lot).

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 04:01

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

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HELL YES.

a good post

# ¿ May 12, 2018 00:31

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Matt Zerella posted:

https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1001924759377141765

owns.

I know it's a hugely uphill fight against Crowley but god drat do I want this lady to win.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2018 18:03

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

If they were smart they'd abolish the fare and move all the revenue equipment maintainers into other departments.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2018 03:42

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

Cuomo made it an automatic felony if someone assaults an MTA worker so maybe that's why?

It's because Stand United currently has an iron grip on the union leadership, and they've decided that the best way to get good contracts is to kiss as much rear end as possible. It's infuriating and really dangerous for the union long term. But there isn't any credible opposition. Progressive Action exists but hasn't performed well outside of a few small divisions.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2018 10:46

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Gunshow Poophole posted:

i still fondly recall this quite often, the brief couple days where the cops went "on strike" and everyone in the city had a blessed, non-harassed day

That police "strike" was loving awesome, was the best sort of general feeling of calm in the city I can recall in my entire life.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2018 01:10

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Julia Salazar is cool and good until her record in government proves she is not, and at that point she will be replaced. There are no heros, no one is special. Everyone is corruptible by power, just elect people that want to do good and when they fail kick their asses out. It's not individuals but strong mass movements that change the world.

e: important to this post is the fact that Salazar is like a thousand times better than the piece of poo poo she replaced. If she fails, well, okay, next up. If not, hell yeah, Julia Salazar is my cool socialist friend.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2018 00:38

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

lessthankyle posted:

They're also going for the NY Health Act.

ugh that is the dumbest poo poo ever, do they not realize that if you wiped out the cost of employer provided health insurance they could immediately go to bargain for that money (or at least a huge chunk of it) as wage increases, without any detriment to their members? I swear to loving god if my union comes out against this I am going to spend every single day screaming at my union president about what a dumb useless gently caress he is.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2018 03:43

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

He also vetoed a tier VI pension reform bill that would have made TWU pensions a bit better after the TWU spent like two years publicly fellating him. TWU has been dead silent about this.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2018 15:43

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

The problem with upstate seceding is that they'll immediately turn around and frack the living poo poo out of the entire watershed that feeds the city.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2019 19:10

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

etalian posted:

They couldn't defend it since they would be too terrified to leave their glorious paradise of a city.

You might be surprised at NYC residents' ability to match or often surpass upstaters' hatred of being in NYC.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2019 05:00

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Went to Fish Bar last night and was assured that they are going to be there forever, and that should get my hopes way way up that them closing was only an unfounded rumor.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2019 19:39

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

They're using scab labor op.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2019 12:36

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Yeah most of the unions fear that if single payer is passed, that employer provided insurance as a negotiated benefit will cease and that they will be unable to negotiate for much, if any, of that value, and that their members will end up with worse health insurance and nothing to show for it.

It's kind of myopic and I wish my union supported a broader leftist agenda but here we are.

# ¿ May 18, 2019 16:25

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Currently if I opt out of my health plan (I have to prove I'm otherwise covered, say, from a spouse's insurance or something) I would get about 3k, and my understanding is it would save the MTA about 11k, though those numbers may be somewhat out of date.

If single payer passed on the state level I don't even know what the MTA would do. Lots of our employees live in NJ, I doubt just blanket dropping health insurance would fly (it would violate the current contract, which is also expired but w/e) but I'm sure they'd want to negotiate down to something that costs them about 3k or less a year per employee.

# ¿ May 18, 2019 20:28

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

So is Cuomo extending this NYPAUSE thing past the 15th? I don't remember how close to the expiry he let things get before the previous extensions but it seems really obvious we're not at all ready to open up the state.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 18:55

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Well I read a lot of published anecdotes of people who were essentially like "isolation is really hard, I just popped to the grocery store yesterday for supplies and swung by the hardware store to get some things and then picked up some takeout on the way home, and today I have to go real quick to see my friend and then stop by the liquor store and maybe grab some pizza on the way back, and tomorrow I'm going to the park to get some sun and then probably a quick run to the pharmacy and maybe the supermarket..." so I can definitely see how people are both 'sheltering in place' and getting sick and getting their whole families sick.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 22:43

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Himuro posted:

Hey guys, is there a general NYC thread at SA so I can ask some questions?

If you're asking about visiting like, right now, uh. We're gonna pretty much tell you it's a drat pandemic and don't come here if you don't absolutely have to. A lot of people have died here.

# ¿ May 27, 2020 05:33

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Real hurthling! posted:

the paper said it was a 16% raise and i was like dayum, uft get me that too! but maybe the paper hosed up the math or lied

a very cursory google search posted:

The tentative agreement is retroactive, beginning on May 26, 2021, and expiring Nov. 6, 2026. It includes wage increases of 3 percent for each of the first four years of the contract, and 3.25 percent in the final year.

3% annual raises compounded over 4 years and 3.25% in the final year work out so that in each year your total raise (as a percentage of original salary) is:

3.00%
6.09%
9.27%
12.55%
16.21%

So calling it 16% is reasonable. However that 3.25% in the final year is actual over about 18 months. So it's only a 3.25% annual raise if you acknowledge that it's also taking a 0% raise for 6 months built in. This is a sneaky thing they like to do to improve chances of ratification--they get to put a bigger number on the raise while actually giving you less money. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad contract it's just worth noting.

So yes it's a 16% raise, but you won't have the full 16% until the final contract year. Any hours you already worked form May 26 2021 through May 25 2022 should be eligible for retro pay at 3% of your current wage. Then any hours from May 26, 2022 through the date the raises actually go into effect in 2023 would get retro at 6.09% and that ~6% figure is what your pay will go up by immediately. With another 3% raise coming May 26 of this year (which will total 9.27% of your current rate). on May 26, 2025 you'll finally be at that full 16.21% of your current pay and you will be under contract at those rates until November of 2027.

The most recent TWU contract which expires this May was raises of 2%, 2.25%, 2.5%, and 2.75% per year which was pretty underwhelming at just under 10% over 4 years.

Edit: I'm working off of this https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/120-23/mayor-adams-dc-37-tentative-contract-agreement-providing-fair-wage-increases-and#/0 announcement from the Mayor's ofice. The actual CBA and all the memorandums of understanding for the individual workplaces and groups would be necessary to know exactly how all all these programs will be implemented and how they'll affect you personally. Hopefully that information is made available to you by your unions as promptly as possible. Usually they'll include wage charts as well. Other things that spring immediately to mind:

I haven't seen much about how (or if) health insurance benefits will be impacted other than the quote from the executive board guy saying that you'll still have no premiums. Ideally this means no changes at all but it's possible there's some sneaky stuff in there about level of benefits, or even just some relatively mundane pricing adjustments where like copays might go up slightly, I haven't seen any details on this so who knows.

$3M/ year towards a child care fund will probably be some moderately subsidized group daycares or if they really phone it in a voucher program. It will be helpful to at least some people and maybe the argument can be made in future contracts to expand the program if it appears to be working well for people.

Committee on remote work will probably spend a few years drafting a report that will honestly say remote work is great and should be implemented wherever possible and then the middle managers of the city will just not do it anyway.

$70M for 'hard to fill' positions will probably look like civil service waivers for specific job titles that are historically and critically understaffed (but like, more than all the other ones) and possibly small one-time title specific raises. For example in 2018 Signal Maintainers at NYCT got an extra $1.50/hour because retention was almost impossible, as they at that time made less than almost every other front line MOW title of equal level but also had the worst working conditions. Additionally they renewed the Signal Maintainer Trainee program allowing people to progress straight into that title without a full civil service test provided they were from an eligible title and completed an 18 month training course.

Pandemic response committee sounds like it will also do nothing. Many city and state agencies actually already had a pandemic response plan prior to 2020 and just utterly failed to execute it. NYCT policy at least stated that we should have had a stockpile of masks and distributed them promptly to staff, immediately initiated social distancing, and begun rotating out staff to keep a healthy reserve workforce at all times. Instead in March of 2020 we were still writing people up for wearing masks and 'alarming passengers', crew rooms stayed overcrowded, the mask stockpile was never purchased, and hundreds of people died unnecessarily. Some of those policies were eventually, temporarily implemented at least.

$3k ratification bonus is pretty good if it's actually something everyone is eligible for. What the eligibility criteria are I don't know, probably some minimum length of time in the job at the very least. I'm assuming it's non-pensionable but as a one-time bonus it only matters if its pensionable if you're retiring rather soon anyway.

grah has issued a correction as of 10:16 on Feb 20, 2023

# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 09:54

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 06:22

grah: Jul 26, 2007; brainsss

Leon Sumbitches posted:

Great write up overall. Two quick comments

Each agency has been told to figure out their remote/compressed/flexible work policy and have a pilot program in place within 60 days of ratification.

My friend and I wrote an open letter with guidance from union leadership. The letter basically says we're watching and have high expectations based on what has been agreed to and if they really want to stop attrition, they gotta go hard on remote work.

My office is probably one of the largest that was fully remote for two years, some 300+ of us. Management specifically said over and over that the Mayor was the only reason we weren't remote, so I'm putting their feet to the fire. Passing the letter around there first, then taking it to other chapters next Wednesday at the next local exec board meeting. Hope to get over 1k signers.

It may or may not do anything, but this is the one window where grassroots might have the largest effect.

On the ratification bonus, I heard the only requirement is active membership at the time of ratification. That's it.

Here's the one pager so you don't have to type a book again:

It is possible I have become overly cynical over the years.

Having a hard deadline for a remote work pilot is more substance than I expected but I'll still believe it when I see it.

It looks like a decent contract all in all or, it would I guess if inflation wasn't insane and likely to stay that way. But that's usually the case with these things.

The bonus being pensionable and more or less universal is nice.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 12:40

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