Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I cannot thank you enough for the work that has been done over the past year and continues to this day. Members of our local have felt overworked, underappreciated, abused by our State, City, and in some cases, our Union. It has been a chaotic year on the job with added duties, changes in assignments, and vaccine mandates. While a majority of our members got vaccinated, there were members who were forced to take leave without pay, resigned, or were terminated. Additionally, the return to office policies came with broken assurances of a safe work environment.
Despite all of this, we members of Local 768, whether on site or remotely, worked to serve our City and its citizens.
Again, THANK YOU.
Local 768 has been through many changes within the past year. The new officers of 768 have worked hard to improve communication with members.
We want to be aware of what is happening with our members, and we want to keep members informed as well. While things have not been perfect, we are making every effort to ensure issues among all job titles are heard and addressed. As a team who ran to Rebuild our union, we cannot do this without your strength and knowledge. Change will not come overnight, but the team of officers are working hard, and with your information from the field and your active involvement, we can make this happen.
Let me go over some of the past events through the last year. Many want to know what happened to Hazard Pay/Essential Pay. DC 37 continues to fight for this. It has not been easy, and it has yet to be determined who will be entitled to this compensation, if anyone. Former Mayor de Blasio told the New York Times that in order for compensation to take place, New York State would have to give the City more money. It is the hope that with Mayor Adams some resolution can be found.
The policy changes regarding vaccine mandates were probably the hardest issue our union faced in the past year. DC 37 sought injunctions for the vaccine mandates and was unsuccessful in the court system, but reached the best possible agreement given the circumstances to give members the time needed to decide what was best for them.
The last is teleworking. Local 768 is committed to bringing the issue to the forefront for our members. We as the Local will continue to advocate for the passage of the NYC Telework Expansion Act. We also need you, the members, to help us achieve this goal.
There is much more work to be done in our Local and this work cannot be done without the members. As I have said before in Title/Chapter meetings and at General membership meetings, we as officers need feedback as to what is happening at your workplaces. Management’s primary goal is to make the Union weaker and disempower the members of their rights. To counter this, I call on you to step up and get involved. Let’s work together to Rebuild this local.
In Solidarity,
Carmen De León, President
and Local 768's Leadership Team