Public Employee Press

Day care workers demand justice

Parents, politicians and pint-sized protesters joined day care workers at a City Hall rally May 22 to tell the Bloomberg administration, “Enough is enough!”

Terminations of 600 members, no contract since the last one expired on March 31, 2006, and management’s failure to comply with a 14-month-old arbitration ruling led members of District Council 1707’s Local 205 to take their protest to the streets.

Echoing down the concrete canyons of Lower Manhattan, their chants called on the public to “Stand behind our teachers so our children can have a future.” Passersby — from Con Edison employees to construction workers in hard hats and cops in uniform — all indicated their support for the cause.

“Saving unionized public day care is everyone’s concern,” said Connie Derr, acting regional director for AFSCME, the national union of DC 37 and DC 1707. “These people are providing an essential service and the city is disregarding them.”

Members of DC 37 and other unions were there in solidarity as DC 37 Associate Director Oliver Gray addressed the throng of protesters: “You are entrusted with the precious lives of our children while you struggle to make a living. We are with you in your fight! It’s time for a contract!” said Gray.

The demand for public day care and the after-school program grows greater every day. Yet when the city switched the program from the Administration for Children’s Services to the Dept. of Youth and Community Development and terminated 600 after-school care employees, thousands of children lost access.

DC 1707 Executive Director Raglan George said the city’s refusal to negotiate a contract for the 7,000 day care workers is unacceptable: “We are here to say to the city that they can’t dismantle child care and privatize child care. This is what this mayor is doing, and we want it to stop.”

— Jane LaTour