After four years of working without a raise, 7,000 low-paid day care workers finally took their anger to the streets. Members of Local 205 in AFSCME District Council 1707 brought their beef with the mayor to the fore by launching a three-day strike.

Early Wednesday morning, June 9, they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall, trying to bring their message to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On the second day of the strike, he offered to restart negotiations, which were continuing as this issue of PEP went to press.

The strikers rallied in the melting heat of the noonday sun. Speakers addressed the angry picketers. “I ask the Mayor to be fair,” said City Council member Sara Gonzales. She expressed simply the feelings of the day care employees, who average $27,000 a year working at city-funded centers but have been asked to accept smaller wage increases than city employees. To the strikers, she said, “You have my support and the support of the City Council.”

Fist in the air, DC 37 Field Services Director Barbara Ingram-Edmonds told the crowd, “We are your sister council in our national union, AFSCME, and we are with you all the way!”

One speaker borrowed a line from civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” She drew cheers from the demonstrators, mainly women carrying their hand-lettered picket signs.

Latanya Rodgers is a Kindergarten Teacher at the Lillian Sklar Center in Brooklyn. Her sign spelled out many of the strikers’ key issues: “Day Care Workers have the same educational qualifications as Public School Workers and are given No Respect; Work longer hours than public school workers; work during the summer; have not had a contract in four years; demand fair wages.”

She shared her thoughts about the strike: “Outside of hoping for a contract, I’m hoping that we earn the respect of the people of New York. We’re treated as babysitters and we’re not!”

Certified Teacher Alleane German has been on the job for 27 years. “The bill collectors don’t want to hear that you haven’t had a raise in four years,” she said.

The strike closed 350 centers and disrupted the schedules of the parents of 30,000 mainly low-income children. Despite their difficulties, many of the parents supported the strikers. “A father from our center, Mr. Dunlop, marched to support us today,” said Ms. German.

About 500 members of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators joined the strike. “The government says that no child should be left behind. But our whole system is left behind,” said Cecilie Newton, director of the Stagg Street Center in Williamsburg.

One striker outside City Hall expressed cautious optimism, while her sign read: “Everyone knows early education works. Why doesn’t the Mayor know this? Or doesn’t he care?”