At an Oct. 3 press conference on the steps of City Hall, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and UFT Family Child Care Providers Chapter Leader Tammie Miller demanded that the city pay 47 child care providers who lost out on two months’ payments after the network that employed them went bankrupt and closed.

The providers who were affiliated with the Highbridge Advisory Council Family Services in the Bronx are owed more than $539,000 — an average of $11,000 each — for their services in May and June. The city Department of Education kept sending money to the network despite indications that it was going broke.

DOE officials pledged this summer to pay the workers, but they reneged on that promise in late September.

“Enough is enough,” Mulgrew said. “We’re just telling the city these folks did their job, why don’t you do yours? Mr. Mayor, pay your workers.”

Miller said it is a “gross breach of duty” that the city has failed to pay her members. “These are real people with real families to feed, real bills to pay and real lives to lead,” she said.

The UFT helped the providers affiliate with other child care networks by July 1.

Juana Reanos of Juana Reanos Group Family Daycare in the Bronx said she had to lay off two workers because she didn’t get paid. She was able to keep caring for children by using about $12,000 of her own savings.

“We are more than 40 providers, and we are struggling day by day to see how we are going to provide the care for the children,” she said.

City Council Education Committee Chair Rita Joseph, a former teacher who stood with the union at the press conference, told the providers that she is “committed to making sure you get every single dollar you are owed.”