Day Care Workers Stage a Daylong Strike Over Raises
7,000 teachers, directors, food service, and maintenance workers shut down 358 publicly subsidized private daycare centers in New York City Wednesday, as they held a one-day walkout to protest continued inaction by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on two-year old contract negotiations (see WIT for Feb. 10, 2003). Rallying at City Hall, over 2,000 workers and their supporters made clear that they were striking "against Bloomberg," "not against children," as they sought to gain the same four-percent per year raise that formed the basis of recent contracts for other city public service employee groups. The members of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators and District Council 1707 condemned the mayor's proposal of a five year contract with no raises, one-time only payments far below the value of the raises sought, a loss of two weeks of vacation, and increased health insurance costs, and reiterated the possibility of a major strike.