As a result, it is hard to find and retain workers such as teachers, school administrators, and librarians. Besides substantial pay increases, the city's budget surplus can reduce the standard work week to 30 hours with no loss of pay, and end two-tier contracts. Workers need to unite against injustice and low pay. We must not let the bosses divide us by bribing some of us into becoming bootlickers. All workers, retirees, and their families need health care increased to 100 percent coverage with no premiums and no co-payment.
Public workers have the same rights as all workers.
We need a contract that commits all parties in the agreement to protecting workers' due process rights, and removing the punitive aspects of the Taylor Law, which outlaws strikes by public workers. We need a contract that is not funded by reducing contributions to our pension funds. We support a legislative proposal to permit all public employees to select Tier 1 pension coverage. Decent pensions with automatic cost of living increases should be there for current and future retirees. Teachers need smaller class sizes.