CWA 1180 Training and Education

Cool CATS
1180 techies run the electronic infrastructure the city depends on
November 2002

Most Local 1180 members are Principal Administrative Associates (PAAs) working in city agencies, but the union also represents a number of shops that are not part of the city, as well as several other titles within city government. One of these is the Computer Associate Tech Support (CATS) title, and there are a total of 280 CATS in 1180. The Communique sat down with several CATS members from different agencies to talk about what they do, why it matters, and what their issues are. The Communique's editor was in over her head as soon as the conversation started because the CATS started talking about acronyms and programs and technical concepts. Though they were all from different agencies, they spoke the same language. We asked them to translate for the rest of us.

At night, when the Job Centers are empty and other Human Resources Administration (HRA) workers have gone home for the day, Yvonne Bandison comes into the Management Information Systems (MIS) office of HRA to begin her work. While others sleep, she is part of the unseen operation that processes all the work done during the day. "At night, we run all the jobs input during the day," explained the 18-year HRA veteran and shop steward, "such as eligibility, reconciliations, checks staggering. I sit at a terminal and monitor all the jobs running—about 1,500 to 1,700 a night—monitor errors, fix them, or call in a programmer if I can't fix them." There are some 80 CATS in HRA, and the single biggest group, 30 of them, are at MIS. The bottom line is that without the overnight processing of information, HRA would not function, affecting "thousands of people who depend on benefits, so our impact [at MIS] is to the public and services to the public," Bandison added.

"I like the troubleshooting and fixing problems; it keeps my brain working all the time"
—Lenora Smith, DEP

Over at the Board or Education, Patricia Conyers is one of about 60 CATS scattered throughout the agency. She is the only one at her site, the District 23 Committee on Special Education. Her job includes "everything that's technical; there's troubleshooting, and some training. I make sure the network is up and running. I'm the liaison between the help desk to get everything running again. I'm just there to give people the technical support they need. And some upgrading, installing some parts on the computers." After rattling off that list, she added the obvious, "it's a lot of things." Both the local area network (LAN) and the Board of Ed's mainframe computer that connects everybody to things like timekeeping programs are crucial for everyday functioning. "Those things have to be up and running on a daily basis. If our computers go down, we cannot function. When they go down, people go nuts."

NYPD shop steward Velma Dickson works at the help desk, which services people throughout the agency, helping them with running applications, fixing problems and more. "As we go into the new technological world, our little help desk has gotten bigger. It's a 24-hour operation," noted Dickson. She is one of 11 CATS in the Police Department, all of them at One Police Plaza.

Lenora Smith is a shop steward in the Personnel Services Budget unit at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and one of 12 CATS in the agency. The unit continually updates the records for the agency's 6,500 workers so that paychecks can be generated, time and leave issues approved or disapproved and other personnel budget issues addressed. Without this work, "we wouldn't be able to pay our employees," Smith explained.

Whereas Bandison, Conyers, Dickson and Smith are all part of the data-processing infrastructure that enables their agencies to function, Richard Boyd works at the Financial Information Services Agency (FISA), which is essentially the nerve center that coordinates information from each agency so that the city can function as a whole. There are 17 CATS there. "We are the repository where the city's budget resides," Boyd elaborated, "all the information, processing for the budget occurs there. All the agencies send their stuff to us. We collect and process the information necessary to do the city payroll. We're the hub of the whole thing, the repository for employee databases, budget databases, and more—that's all housed there."

The joy of troubleshooting

For normal mortals, whose relationship with their computers is often best described as one of détente, nothing is scarier than a technical problem. But for 1180 CATS members, its when the problems start that their jobs get really interesting. "I like the challenge of a task completed quickly, and then I'm sitting back and saying, give me more," said Dickson. "I like the challenge of the technical field."

"I like the troubleshooting and fixing problems; it keeps my brain working all the time," Smith said.

"The troubleshooting I enjoy," echoed Bandison. "Each problem has a different solution, so you have to use good judgment. That keeps it interesting."

"Troubleshooting is very excited," Conyers agreed. "When you finally solve something, that's quite a feeling. It never gets boring."

"We feel like the unwanted stepchild; we just want to be recognized"
—Richard Boyd, FISA

Loving the technical challenges that the rest of us hate is not the only thing that sets the CATS apart. In contrast to other 1180 members, members in the CATS title have jobs whose primary focus is technical, and not clerical. They are very aware of that, and sometimes worried that the union's clerical majority will overwhelm them and drown out their distinctiveness, and with it, the ability to get the help they need to address their particular issues as tech support workers. "We feel like the unwanted stepchild," said Boyd. "Sometimes we don't think they even know we're here."

The reason 1180 represents the CATS technical title as well as the various clerical titles has to do with how the titles evolved in response to changing technologies as well as city reorganization efforts. In its early days, the major title Local 1180 represented was called Clerk Grade 5. That title evolved into the Administrative Assistant title, and as workplace duties diversified, the Administrative Assistant title developed specialties; there was Administrative Assistant-Secretarial and Administrative Assistant-EDP, which stood for electronic data processing. In 1978 when the city reorganized again, modern computer applications had grown by leaps and bounds, and so two separate titles were set up, PAA and CATS. Since Local 1180 had always represented the people in the predecessor title, Administrative Assistant-EDP, the new CATS title was kept in 1180 as well.

The CATS members the Communique spoke to expressed two related concerns. The first is that they feel like the union doesn't really understand what their jobs are, and thus can't respond to their needs as well. The second is that they feel like there is a tendency to see the CATS title as a clerical title, as though it were a PAA job with a little extra computer work instead of a distinct set of responsibilities and skills altogether.

"I don't think the union folks are informed about our title, or understand what we do," Bandison said.

"I think they're trying to turn the CATS title into a clerical title. It's not," stressed Boyd. "Yes, there's administrative functions to CATS, but the bulk of what we're doing in technical. It shouldn't be watered down." An example he cited about how this can be a problem was with the city residency requirement. Other technical titles in the city are exempted from the residency requirement; CATS are not. "It's because they don't see us as a technical title. We keep getting painted with the same brush as the PAAs."

A particular concern for the CATS is not being forgotten at contract time. "When you negotiate, negotiate with us in mind as well as the PAAs," Boyd said. To make sure that happens, Smith urged, "all the CATS should come together and fight to be recognized by our local."

Keeping up with new technology

One way that the CATS job is different from the PAA job is that the rate of technological development means that CATS have to continually upgrade their skills and their education. "The job is changing because the technology is changing," said Dickson. "Some things they [the agency] send you to school for, but a lot of it we have to do on our own. It's constant. The union's education program helps," she added.

Smith said the same thing. "I've taken classes in 1180; I'm getting ready to take more, because everything is changing." (Smith recalled when DEP still had index cards for every employee. "With the new technology, the tracking system we have, thank God, we finally got rid of those cards. You no longer have to worry about losing that card or spilling coffee on it.")

"The field is always changing, and you have to stay on top of it," Conyers said.

Local 1180's extensive educational opportunities have been a plus to CATS members (Dickson says "I'm really excited that CWA has got the courses with Cisco!"—click here for more information on the Cisco program), but the need for continual education and training might also be something that should be addressed in the contract.

While their experience differs from the PAAs' in terms of education and training needs, the CATS' biggest complaint is exactly the same as the PAAs' biggest complaint: frustration with promotional opportunities, or lack thereof, and the difficulty of moving up to higher levels within the title. "The main issue to me is moving people," said Dickson. Bandison concurred: "There's no room to move."

And so, for all their differences, the 1180 CATS have common cause with their PAA sisters and brothers and can unite around the ongoing struggle to improve promotional opportunities for all 1180 members.

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