[Peace-discuss] Fwd:Update: Support daycare workers, Summer of Protest & Res

[jencart]

--------------------------------------------------------------
Update from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition:
- Support daycare workers in New York City
- Update on Summer of Protest and Resistance
- Donate to support the anti-war movement

* * * * *

SUPPORT DAYCARE WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has made the
connection in all of the national anti-war
demonstrations during the past three years between
the war drive abroad and the assault waged against
workers' rights and human needs at home. The Bush
administration has raised the military budget to
the highest levels ever in its pursuit of global
domination. At the same time, the Federal
Government has slashed funds for vitally needed
social services and monies for states and cities.

Brenda Stokely is the President of District
Council 1707 AFSCME in New York City and the
Co-Chair of New York City Labor Against the War.
She has been a leader in the anti-war movement.
She was a featured speaker at the June 5
demonstration sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition in Washington DC. She, along with other
members of New York City Labor Against the War and
other progressive unionists, has organized worker
delegations to participate in anti-war protests.

Below is a statement by Brenda Stokely concerning
the strike waged in the last week by more than 7,
000 daycare teachers and workers in New York City,
who have been working without a contract since
2002. Many of these workers take home $250 a week
as they provide an invaluable service for mainly
low income children in the New York City area.
They have received incredible support from the 50,
000 family members whose children are in the
city-funded daycare programs, as well as from the
community. The A.N.W.E.R. Coalition supports these
workers and reiterates that the anti-war movement
demands money for jobs, decent wages, daycare and
education, not for war against the people of Iraq
or anywhere else.

Call Mayor Bloomberg in New York City and tell
him that you support the union's demands that
these workers receive a living wage. He can be
reached at 212-639-9675 (or 311 inside NYC), or
send him a message from http://nyc.
gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

Statement from Brenda Stokely:

"The average daycare worker makes $26,000 a year
or less. They make about $6.48 an hour compared to
the $12 million spent an hour for war. If this
same daycare worker is asking for only a 4% raise
on their $26,000/annual salary, they would get
only $0.25 more added to their hourly wage. 

"While this government doesn't blink an eye as it
spends $300 million dollars a day in its quest to
subjugate another people and their resources, it
turns a deaf ear to the cries of the daycare
workers and other working families in need of a
livable wage. 

"It is therefore necessary for working people to
connect the attacks on their right to just wages
and to organize, with the cutbacks in government
spending for education, housing, health care and
safety regulations. These cutbacks are direct
attacks on working peoples' quality of life or
their ability to live at all. 

"A real political victory for working people
cannot be limited to just changing the name of the
person or the party in the White House, but real
change would mean that there is an end to an era
of domination by a class that sucks the very blood
out of the lives of those who work every day and
literally tells them that their lives aren't even
worth twenty-five cents."

* * * * *

SUMMER OF PROTEST AND RESISTANCE

On April 15, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition called
for demonstrations to take place at the end of
June exposing the Bush administration's phony
transfer of sovereignty in Iraq as no