Day Care Workers, not Muppets, Take Manhatten

Day Care Workers March In Manhattan Demanding Better Pay, Respect
NY1 News

Day care providers marched on city and state offices Tuesday demanding more respect and more money. NY1's Rebecca Spitz was at their rally and says they're asking one of the city's most powerful unions to lend them some muscle. She filed the following report.

Chanting "overworked and underpaid," home day care providers marched in Downtown Manhattan Tuesday.

They started at the city's Human Resources Administration, the office that pays them, and marched to the State Office of Children and Family Services or OCFS, the office that sets their salary rate, along the way demanding back pay they say is owed them.

"Those people that work up in that building, they get paid and they get paid on time," said Bertha Lewis at the rally. "They get paid well, and they ain't taking care of our most precious possession: our children."

Salary increases for day care providers went into effect last October, but these providers say they never heard about them and certainly haven't been paid at the new rate.

"The hours of work, it's 10-12 hours a day, long hours," says day care provider Susan Brewer. "We - all of the providers - feel that we should get paid what we deserve."

Continued...