City Island News BX: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here

City Island News BX: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here By Robert Press BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 23- Mayor Bill deBlasio came to Riverdale to visit one...

City Island News BX: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here

City Island News BX: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here: Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here By Robert Press BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 23- Mayor Bill deBlasio came to Riverdale to visit one...

Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here

Mayor gets schooled in Pre-K here

By Robert Press

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 23- Mayor Bill deBlasio came to Riverdale to visit one of the longest running Pre-K site that has successfully been in operation since the 1940's according to Daniel Eudene the Executive Director of the Riverdale Neighborhood Neighborhood House. 

Currently 70 children are being served with half day Pre-K that will increase to full day Pre-K starting at the beginning of the new school year in September. As he arrived, Mayor de Blasio stopped to chat with Ms. Melissa Shields mother of a soon to be Pre-K child and her one year old sister. The mayor and the local elected officials then toured the Riverdale Neighborhood House to see the Pre-K program in action. They also learned that the RNN is also a teen after school center and much more.

The mayor and other elected officials then came outside to discuss what they had seen and just what the mayor’s Pre-K program was all about. As he spoke de Blasio thanked State Senator Jeff Klein in getting the funding put into the state budget after the mayor was unable to have a Pre-K tax passed in Albany. Senator Klein said as Co-Leader of the state senate that he was not going to approve a state budget that did not have a Pre-K plan in it. Klein and other elected officials who spoke said that when children go through a Pre- K class that the students do better in school than others who do not receive the benefit of a Pre-K class. 

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. echoed Senator Klein's words with the story of his two children who received a Pre-K program, and now both are in college with one graduating soon. Riverdale Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Councilman Andrew Cohen were also on hand, and both gave examples of the virtue of the Pre[-K program.

The deadline for public school sign up was Wednesday Aprill 23rd, but with many public schools not having enough space (if any) Community Based Organizations such as RNN will be called upon to fill the over 50,000 Pre-K seats that are projected for the beginning 0f the September 2014 school year. Mayor de Blasio said that when the Pre-K program is fully implemented in its second year that 70,000 Pre-K seats will be available citywide.

City Island News BX: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in La...

City Island News BX: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in La...: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in Labor Dispute Northeast Bronx Hot-Sheet Motel Battle Over Wages, Bedbugs, and Postin...

City Island News BX: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in La...

City Island News BX: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in La...: Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in Labor Dispute Northeast Bronx Hot-Sheet Motel Battle Over Wages, Bedbugs, and Postin...

Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in Labor Dispute

Working Girls Aren’t the Only Ones Suffering in Labor Dispute

Northeast Bronx Hot-Sheet Motel Battle Over Wages, Bedbugs, and Posting Pix on Internet

By David Greene

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 23- Workers continue to picket a local hot-sheet motel as a labor dispute will soon enter a fifth-month.

The 18 employees of the Capri Whitestone Hotel along the Hutchinson River Parkway near Ferry Point Park, have been demonstrating outside the hotel since early January after their contract expired.

Workers charge that on March 3, the owner slashed the housekeepers’ pay from $24.80 to $10.92 an hour and eliminated their health and retirement benefits.

 (A hotel guest hides the face of his date as they arrive at the Capri Whitestone Hotel.--Photo courtesy of the New York Hotel and Motel Trade Council) The workers clean and maintain 95 rooms that can be rented for a 4-hour stay or by the night. Rooms can cost as little as $55 for a four-hour stay and as much as $120 per night.

With the blessing of organizers at the New York Hotel and Motel Trade Council, on March 20 union members began the unusual step of snapping photos of patrons who crossed their picket line and posting those pictures at the website www.Dontcrosstheline.com.

Fellow union members who have joined the picket line in solidarity with Capri Whitestone workers, are also armed with an air horn and bullhorn to disturb the peace and quiet that those who decided to cross the picket line, had sought.

The union has filed several grievances with the National Labor

Relations Board, including management cutting pay of unionized workers and workers charge-- are violating the National Labor Relations Act.

Those charges are still being investigated.

On April 9 an arbitrator ruled that management must protect workers with hazmat suits to protect them from a bedbug infestation at the hotel.

Workers claim that the bedbug outbreak was caused by management’s refusal of washing the bedspreads after every visit.

Room attendant Venus Burgos, a 12-year employee at the Capri Whitestone, said of her plight, "I'm a single mom. I have three kids to support. I've always known the most important things I can give me children are love and education."

Burgos added, "But with an almost $14 an hour wage cut and no medical, I'm not sure I can even pay for my rent, let alone my children’s education."

Workers and union officials say they are prepared to stick it out for as long as the battle takes.

Calls for comment from the management of the Capri Whitestone Hotel were not immediately returned.   

City Island News BX: Spring Events Throughout Boro

City Island News BX: Spring Events Throughout Boro: Spring Events Throughout Boro Jazz standards to be performed at library Spend an afternoon of music with Don Witter at the Pelham ...