NEW YORK
Daycare workers hold one-day strike
Some 7,000 workers at city-funded day care centers here held
a one-day strike in New York on Feb. 12.
The workers are members of AFSCME District Council 1707. The
daycare directors are represented by the Council of School
Supervisors and Administrators. Under New York state's Taylor
Law, many city employees aren't allowed to strike. But this
strike was legal, since the daycare centers are privately run
although city funded.
Daycare teachers make $34,000 a year, $5,000 less than their
counterparts in the school system. Other workers, like
custodians and kitchen aides, make $20,000.
New York's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, maintains
that the city doesn't have the money to satisfy the unions'
demands for a 4-percent annual raise over the five years of the
contract, which expired in 2000.
The unions called a demonstration on Broadway near City
Hall. Along with the strikers, parents and members of other
unions came out in support.
"The time is now, Mr. Bloomberg," said District Council 1707
Executive Director Raglan George. "Give us our money now!"
D.C. 1707 President Brenda Stokeley linked the workers'
struggle for a decent contract to the struggle against a new
war on Iraq. City Council member Charles Barron aimed his
comments at Bloomberg: "Tax those who are billionaires, like
you, mayor."
Aicha Jackson, a teacher at the Joseph DiMarco Child Care
Center in Long Island City, Queens, said: "We are
professionals, not baby sitters. We set the foundation for
children to go to school."
City Council members Tracy Boyland and David Weprin,
Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields, and Larry Holmes
from the ANSWER coalition also expressed solidarity.
--G. Dunkel
Reprinted from the March 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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