Public Employee Press

ACS plan threatens 20 centers
Union active in fight to preserve day-care centers

Day-care workers represented by District Council 1707 fought an Administration for Children's Services plan to shut down 20 day-care centers.

In addition to affecting thousands of children and leaving parents without affordable child care, these closings will eliminate the jobs of hundreds of workers represented by DC 1707, an affiliate of DC 37's parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

On June 9 outside City Hall, DC 37 activists joined unionized workers, politicians and community advocates to blast ACS for failing to renew their contracts with these centers.

"We insist that the administration find a way to keep these centers open," said DC 37 Associate Director Oliver Gray. "Four hundred people will lose their jobs. Twenty centers will be closed. We can't allow that to happen."

Kids from the centers attended the press conference and rally, holding signs with messages as "We Need Mary Walton Children's Center" and "We Need Child Care Education." And they led the protestors with chants of "We need day care!"

"We want to make sure these kids have an opportunity to succeed," said City Council member Ben Kallos. "We want to make sure parents can work."

City Council members Mark Levine and Andy King also showed up to speak against the closings.

ACS scheduled the closings to begin in June. G.L. Tyler, DC 1707's political director, said the June 9 demonstration marked the beginning of a series of actions that the union will take to oppose the closings.

"This is a family," said Maria Teresa Cruz, who works at the Nasry Michelen Day Care Center in Manhattan. "No one is going to take my family from me. I have worked in this day-care center for 20 years."

"There is a tsunami of misery sweeping the city," said DC 1707's legal counsel, Larry Cary, pointing out the day care center workers have gone 10 years without a raise. The public day-care center system needs millions of dollars in additional federal, state and local funding, he said.

In the New York City budget for 2016, 16 of the threatened centers are funded for the year. "The City Council has acted heroically to provide funding for these centers, but we must continue to fight for the remaining day-care facilities," said Tyler.

— Gregory N. Heires