Day Care Strikers Rock City Hall

NEW YORK CITY

This city's 7,000 day care workers haven't had a raise in four years. They earn an average of $27,000 a year working at city-funded centers, caring for 30,000 mainly low-income children. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn't seem to notice. So they walked out for three days in June.

Represented by AFSCME District Council 1707, the strikers' message was spelled out by Robin Saunders, a certified teacher at the George C. Conliffe Center in Brooklyn and a member of Local 205: "We put in longer hours, yet we are given no respect. I'm on strike because we're being treated as baby sitters, and we're not. We've waited too long. We won't take it anymore!"