December 14, 2018
After nearly nine months, the Bronx office has settled a grievance challenging the Bronx office’s overuse of combined lines, colloquially referred to as “split” or “slashed” titles, such as paralegal-slash-intake officer, or executive secretary-slash-intake officer.
Although LSNYC CBA 14.3(E) states that “the combining of two lines will be done sparingly, and only if absolutely necessary,” 31% of the non-attorney, non-social worker positions in the Bronx were split titles.
Through the grievance process, we were able to remove split titles from a number of staff member’s titles while preserving the higher-paid title for each, and reducing the use of split titles to a little more than 10%: a total of four slashed positions out of 44 total non-attorney, non-social worker positions in the Bronx.
In reaching this agreement, neither party conceded whether the current ratio of slashed positions constitutes a “sparing” use of combined lines, and our union reserved the right to dispute the appropriate proportion of slashed title workers on a case-by-case basis.