Nearly 7,000 day care workers staged a one-day strike yesterday, protesting Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's demand that they accept lower raises than those that most municipal employees received.þþThe strike by day care teachers, cooks, custodians and supervisors shut down 358 private centers that are financed largely by the city and provide care for nearly 50,000 children a day. In response to the walkout, many parents stayed home from work to care for their children.þþAt a rally near City Hall, more than 2,000 day care workers and their supporters protested the city's wage offer, carrying picket signs that read: ÿThis is not against children. This is against Bloomberg.ÿþþOfficials with District Council 1707, the union representing the striking workers, said they were seeking a raise of 4 percent a year for three years. But the Bloomberg administration, city officials said, has offered a five-year contract, with no increases in base salary and instead annual lump sum payments equal to 3 percent of their salaries.þþGlenn Huff, president of the union's day care division, said the city's offer was unfair because it was far less than the 9 percent raise over 27 months, averaging 4 percent a year, for most city workers in their last contract. The day care workers' contract expired 25 months ago.þþThe Bloomberg administration says that because of the large budget deficit, it cannot afford to give the day care workers raises unless the union agrees to productivity increases that would finance those raises. The city has proposed that vacation time, now four to six weeks a year, be reduced by two weeks and that workers start paying $15 co-payments for visits to doctors.þþÿThey're not offering anything; they just want givebacks,ÿ said Mr. Huff, whose union is part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He warned that unless progress was made in negotiations, the union might stage another walkout later this month.þþJordan Barowitz, a City Hall spokesman, defended the city's offer, saying, ÿWith the real possibility of layoffs for city workers, how can we provide raises to District Council 1707 unless they are linked to productivity?ÿþþAt the rally, which was held on Broadway, just west of City Hall, C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, supported the workers' cause. ÿIt's unconscionable that you have been without a contract more than two years,ÿ she said.þþAicha Jackson, a teacher at the Joseph DiMarco Child Care Center in Long Island City, Queens, said she wanted the salaries of certified day care teachers to be raised to the same level as those of regular public school teachers. The union wants the starting salary for certified day care teachers, now $34,000, to increase to the $39,000 starting salary for schoolteachers. ÿWe are professionals; we're not baby sitters,ÿ Ms. Jackson said. ÿWe set the foundation for children to go to school.ÿþþCustodians and cooks at the centers earn about $21,000 a year.þþMany parents complained of being inconvenienced by the strike. Janet Boalds, a school bus driver in Brooklyn, said she had to stay home from work yesterday to care for her son, Nicholas, 5. She said the cost of missing work, about $85 a day, was far more than the cost of day care, about $36 a week. Discussing the strike, Ms. Boalds said: ÿIt's not good for the kids. They don't understand.ÿ Nonetheless, she voiced support for the strikers' cause.þþJames F. Hanley, the city labor commissioner, said the city's demands for productivity improvements in the day care talks were similar to its negotiating stance in its new round of talks with 300,000 city workers. But Mr. Huff, the union official, said the city should give the day care workers what municipal workers had received in the previous round of negotiations.þþþ
Source: NY Times
