Local 768 invites you to walk in the 

The Local 768 Election Committee oversaw the elections for the following officers of four Chapters over the two few months:

• Social Work Chapter: Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary
• Public Health Sanitarians: Run-off election for Vice-Chairperson
• Public Health Advisors and Assistants: Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary
• DCWP Inspectors: Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary

For each chapter, nominations were solicited and all nominees were verified as eligible candidates and provided with an opportunity to decline the nomination if they so chose.

The Local 768 Election Committee oversaw the election of our delegates to the 2024 AFSCME Convention. We used an election vendor, ElectionBuddy, for this election.

After nominees were verified as eligible candidates and provided with an opportunity to decline the nomination if they so chose, the election began on June 19th, 2024 and concluded on July 11th, 2024. Per AFSCME constitutional requirements, all eligible voters were sent notice (via USPS mail, as well as email and text message where that information was available) of how to vote online, or if they chose, how to request a paper ballot. Each voter was asked to vote for up to 7 candidates. For delegate elections, the 7 candidates with the most votes are deemed elected. In this election, those are:

• Ryan McGuire
• Tishana King
• Lisa Blackett
• Charlton Smith
• Anthony Scruggs
• Tracey White
• Dorcas Bethel

Building Solidarity and Women’s History: March 2024            

In this issue:

• Uniting for a City That Works for All New Yorkers

• Organize, Fight, Win

• Bargaining update: Bargaining Survey 

• Join Us: AFSCME International Convention

• Leaders Building Leaders: Labor Notes + Local 768

• Member Spotlight: Education + Citizenship

• Join Us: April 10 Membership Meeting 

• Contribute! Share your story

At our Social Work Chapter meeting Wednesday Sept 13, we outlined a new strategy for our concerns regarding how H+H has calculated the retroactive base pay raises implemented as part of our latest contract. The bottom line is that other agencies of the NYC government are calculating these raises differently, in accordance with NYC Office of Payroll Administration guidance (an entity not part of H+H) (click to review the contract and policy). In these other agencies, the retroactive raises were calculated in addition to other adjustments made since the start of this contract (May 25, 2021). We believe this is valid grounds to grieve H+H's improper implementation of our contract.

However, filing a grievance is not the same as winning a grievance, and to do that we need your help: We want to get a majority of Social Workers in H+H to sign onto our group grievance to show H+H that we're all united on this issue.

Click here to sign our grievance:

As Social Workers, our ability to provide quality care to our clients depends on having the time needed to listen, evaluate and plan our interventions. Of course we also need to do the follow up, and document, document, document. It's a lot!

Unions of other caring professions employed by NYC -- like nurses and teachers -- have adopted strategies that have successfully forced their employers to bargaining over their workloads. For nurses, they fought hard to win fair 'nurse:patient ratios'. Similarly, for teachers, it's all about class size. For these workers, there are nationally recognized benchmarks that help them figure out what the demand ought to be.

For Social Workers, there is no nationally recognized standard workload, so if we want to put up a strong fight to win caseload standards, we need to develop that goal ourselves. That is the purpose of this survey: We need to know your experience, so that we can formulate a goal that meets your needs, for your clients.

Please take just a few minutes to answer these questions, and encourage all other Social Worker in Local 768 to fill it out as well!

One of the goals of our union has been to help our members find ways to benefit from loan repayment programs. Understanding these programs can be complicated, and eligibility criteria vary. We have compiled this guide of several programs to help you get started in the process, but please be sure to confirm all details directly with the appropriate program administrators.

Comparison of Loan Repayment and Forgiveness programs

• Chair: Karen Ramirez (H+H / Elmhurst)
• Secretary: Sharon Bryan (H+H / Community Care)

Please join our nation union Wednesday, January 19 for an important webinar to find out how AFSCME members can qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.

Register for the webinar

PSLF is a federal student loan relief program established in 2007 and designed to encourage individuals to enter and continue to work full-time in public sector jobs. Participation in the program generally requires that the borrower have a federal Direct Loan, be employed by a qualified employer on a full-time basis and make 120 loan payments under a qualifying repayment plan. Upon meeting these requirements, the borrower’s loans are to be forgiven. The Department of Education has announced temporary changes to PSLF that expands the number of public service workers who are eligible for loan forgiveness. These changes will expire October 31, 2022, so make sure you don’t miss this opportunity.

First dose of Vaccination is to be done by Monday November 1, 2021 to be in compliance with the new mandate from Mayor de Blasio. To receive the $500.00 bonus the first dose must be completed by 5pm Friday October 29, 2021. The union continues to bargain over the impact the mandate has on the members.

Thank you,

Carmen De León,
President Local 768 DC37
AFSCME, AFL-CIO