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NEW YORK -- Child care workers struck for a second day on Thursday, delivering 10,000 postcards from supportive parents to City Hall and vowing not to capitulate to a city contract offer the union says is unacceptable.
Much of the anger at a rally outside City Hall by more than 1,000 day care workers was directed at Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The child care workers, who are members of District Council 1707 and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, have not gotten a raise in about 3 years and have not had a contract in more than four years. They are seeking a new contract and a retroactive 9 percent pay hike over 27 months.
About 7,500 members of the two unions are honoring the three-day strike scheduled to end Friday. The leaders of the unions, however, have suggested workers might decide to stay out longer due to the lack of progress in negotiations with the Bloomberg administration.
The strike has forced the parents of as many as 50,000 children who use 350 city-subsidized day care outlets to miss work or to find some other way to care for their children. Many of those who use the centers are low-income women.
- reprinted from The Associated Press