Local 154 Presents at Salary Review Panel

      We are underpaid. We create revenues for the City. We demand salary equity, salary step plans and career development.

      Using these concepts, Local 154 presented 6 proposals, covering 13 titles, to the Salary Review Panel. The two days of presentations, one in March and another one in September, were the result of several months of intense preparations including researching and writing these proposals. All the proposals were prepared in-house by Local 154 members.

      The proposals covered title functions, review of revenues or savings generated by the members, salary data, salary comparison with private and state counterpart titles, and the Local's recommendations. The data collected in the process revealed that our members produce significant savings and/or revenues for the City. For example, Claim Specialists play a key role in saving millions of dollars for the City annually. The Comptroller's Office and the Law Department take pride on the amount of savings and revenues produced by those agencies. Local 154's proposal for the Claim Specialist title made sure to explain the key role played by our Claim Specialists in the production of those savings and revenues. In the same way, the proposal for Special Consultants, Title Examiners Occupational Group, Research Assistant, and Human Rights Specialist Occupational Group described in detail revenues and/or savings generated by workers in those titles.

      The analysis also revealed that a salary step plan could be essential in making a progressive difference in our members' salary. The idea is to apply yearly meaningful increments to the base salary of a member in the title. A salary step plan will effectively recognize experience, years of service and avoid the current situation in which new hires have the same base salary as members with many years of service and experience in the title. Currently, the concept has a meaningful impact in the salary of State workers which titles were compared to ours.

      Career development is also a crucial component in the proposals. The lack of career path opportunities is widespread among members in many Locals. In consequence, City employment has become a dead-end street for many workers who feel that the City is unwilling to recognize their contributions in the work place. Meaningful career paths will decrease rates of attrition and assure the permanence of experienced workers at City's service. Our proposal demands include the creation of levels for the Research Assistant, and the Special Consultant title; increased promotions opportunities for Claims Specialist, Title Examiners, Public Records workers and Human Rights Specialists. Also, we included title maturation by which workers would be promoted to the next level after a number of years, as part of the proposals.

      Additional concepts presented to the panel included recognition of education, language skills and specialized job functions, among others.

      The Salary Review panel listened intensively to each one of the presentations by Local 154 leadership. The Panel is expected to complete the review process of over 130 titles submitted by different Locals in three to four months.

      The Salary Review Panel is a mechanism created under the existing economic agreement between the City and the Union. It gives the Local a contractual opportunity to present specific proposals for the adjustment of our member's salaries and job opportunities. The final adjustments will be subject to the City and the Union agreeing on the sources of the funds for this purpose. The Review Panel includes a representative from the City's Office of Labor Relations, another from DC 37 and a third, independent party, from Office of Collective Bargaining.

      Local 154's leadership sees the Salary Review process as an important step in addressing some of our members' concerns; hence the dedication and effort put in preparing the proposals. Local 154 thanks Jeff Rosen, Special Consultant at DOH-MH, for his contribution in writing the proposal for the title of Special Consultant II. Special kudos to our President Juan Fernández who managed to write the five other proposals and led the presentations in front of the panel while attending many others issues and representing our members. Special thanks to William and Susana Garfinkel, whose contributions made the Title Examiners proposal possible; many thanks to Robert Tilley for his ideas on Human Rights work; thanks to Alan Mendelson, Tom De Maria, Joe Meany and Margaret Lettanzzio for their contributions. Finally, we thank all the Local 154 Executive Board Officers who review the drafts, contributed materials, ideas and research to make these presentations possible.

Download your Salary Review Proposal:

• Claim Specialist I, II and III Title Series
• Special Consultant Level II Title
• Human Rights Specialist Title Series
  (Human Rights Specialist, Associate Human Rights Specialist, Supervisor Human Rights Specialist, Principal Human Rights Specialist)
• Research Assistant Title
• Title Examiner Title Series
  (Title Examiner, Supervisor Title Examiner, Principal Title Examiner)
• Public Records Occupational Group
  (Public Records Aide, Public Record Officers, Associate Public Records Officer)