Education
Few issues strike home for working families as much as education for their children. To be equipped for life, every child needs and deserves high-quality education that is available to all—from early childhood through college. For schools to work, educators must have the support and resources they need to succeed and school buildings must be well-equipped and well-maintained. Our schools must serve all children, and comprehensive services and supports must be in place for students with the greatest needs. All students should have access to higher education and assistance paying for it so they are not barred from college or saddled with impossible debt when they leave.
Public schools and public school teachers have been under attack in recent years—from widespread efforts to shift public school funding to private school voucher programs, to attempts to privatize public schools, to moves by governors and state legislators to take bargaining rights from teachers and other school personnel. These attacks are designed to serve the 1 percent—CEOs who can profit from privatized systems and the wealthiest families—at the expense of the 99 percent of students who deserve the best.
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Community Boards are the most grassroots level of New York City’s government and serve an advisory role providing recommendations to the City Council and the Office of the Borough President and working with City agencies to resolve local service issues.
We have always known that reducing class size is integral to student achievement, teacher retention and equitable schools, but it’s now also become an issue of public health. We must learn from the pandemic and take steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses in the future.
The Build Back Better agenda means trillions of dollars of investment in our jobs, families and communities.
As we look back on the past year, we're reflecting on the continuing challenges that the New York City labor movement has faced, but also on the significant ground we’ve gained and the enormous potential ahead of us.
Columbia student workers are still on strike in what is currently the largest such action in the country. Three thousand workers, including undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are now in the eighth week of their strike.
CUNY Rising Alliance and PSC/CUNY are building on their hugely successful 1,000-person march in Queens with a letter campaign meant to build broad worker, community, alumni and student support for increased CUNY funding and the New Deal for CUNY.
TWU Local 100 has launched a new radio spot highlighting the animal welfare provisions that govern the carriage horse industry, which Local 100 is proud to represent.
Columbia student workers are still on strike in what is currently the largest such action in the country. Three thousand workers, including undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are now in the seventh week of their strike.
As 2021 comes to a close, Climate Jobs NY would like to thank our member unions. Together, we drove important progress toward a nation-leading clean-energy economy powered by good, family-sustaining union jobs.
We know that unions promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions. But that’s not all unions do. Unions also have powerful effects on workers’ lives outside of work.