Yesterday, Local 237 won a major battle in our fight to stop the Housing Authority from unlawfully changing the work schedules of our members.  On April 7th, the New York City Office of Collective Bargaining (OCB) authorized Local 237 to seek an injunction in state court to prevent the Housing Authority from implementing these schedule changes.

In discussions with the Authority over the past several months, we have insisted that forcing members to come to work at 6:00 a.m. and work after dark raised serious safety concerns and would disrupt the lives of our members, many of whom could not find childcare at those times. Two weeks ago, we filed an action at OCB to stop the Authority from implementing the schedule changes.  

In its decision yesterday, OCB agreed with us and ruled that our members would suffer “immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage” if the Authority was allowed to change  work schedules before OCB could rule on our claim that the changes were unlawful.  OCB also encouraged the parties to sit down and try to resolve these issues with the help of a mediator.

We will continue to aggressively challenge all actions by the Authority that disregard your contract and workplace safety and keep you up to date on what is happening.

The Union received strong support from the New York City Municipal Labor Committee representing all the City Unions, the IBT and many unions that support our fight.

We have proven again that in UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH!