Public Employee Press

Member gets promotion, pay increase in out-of-title grievance


By GREGORY N. HEIRES

A Local 1407 member won a promotion and an 8 percent raise after the settlement of an out-of-title grievance.

Ahsan Masood joined the city workforce in 2014, when he was hired as an Associate Analyst.

A provisional worker, he took a civil service exam within a year and became a permanent city employee with the title of Management Auditor.

He took that step because he wanted the security of a permanent job.

"There was a change in my salary, which I was okay with," Masood said. "But as time went on, they kept adding tasks."

This extra work involved coming up with the budget that the Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene needs to obtain grants from the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Masood did the work for about a year even though it was not included in his responsibilities as a Management Auditor.

But he grew tired of putting in the extra effort without the extra pay, so he called Local 1407 and filed an out-of-title grievance.

He said he was encouraged to do that because he read about grievances in the union newspaper, Public Employee Press.

"After consulting with our local president, Maf Uddin, we concluded that Ahsan had a strong case, so we got to work right away," said Local 1407 Vice President Jed Matalon, who worked with Masood on the grievance.

The union and the agency agreed to settle after the case reached Step 3 of the grievance process. Thus, both parties avoided the time and cost of arbitration.

It took several months for the agency and union to hammer out the details of the settlement before Masood became a Management Auditor Level 2 in February. His salary went up from $69,431 to $74,985.

"I had not worked with the union before, but I was very encouraged by the process," Masood said. "I knew I had a good chance when I presented my evidence and documentation to the local," he said. "A day later, they contacted me to say we had a strong case."

"This is a good example of how important it is to be aware of your job description and responsibilities," Local 1407 President Uddin said. "We always encourage our members to call us to discuss anything that bothers them in the workplace. We enjoyed working with Masood to get a just settlement."