The Service Employees International Union Local 99, representing half a million students, has refused a new offer from the city and its members have gone on strike. The union represents 30,000 custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers in the nation’s second-largest school district.
The union has demanded “equitable wage increases, more full-time work, respectful treatment, and increased staffing levels for improved student services,” it said. The average worker’s salary is a mere $25,000 a year, and most work part-time — which has led to staffing shortages, the union said.
Unlike the bondholders and other highly-indebted financial players currently in the process of being bailed out, school workers are apparently not “systemically important” enough.
