Huntington Beach : New Dispute Arises in Teacher Negotiations

Another battle between the high school district and the local teachers’ union erupted Monday when the union filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board alleging that the facts of a negotiating session last week were misrepresented in a school board letter to teachers.

But Glen Dysinger, an assistant superintendent at the Huntington Beach Union High School District, said, “That’s their view; that’s not our view. We think it’s the other way around.”

The board’s letter to teachers, delivered Monday, stated that the district offered teachers a 3% salary increase for the current school year retroactive to last July, with a 5% raise next year “plus a wage reopener for 1985-86 if additional revenues beyond the governor’s proposal for the state budget are received.”

When that offer was rejected, the letter stated, “the district offered a 3% retroactive raise for the current year with the contract to end on June 30, 1985 . . . . This was also rejected.”

Doug Scott, president of the District Educators Assn., denied that another offer for the current year was made. Furthermore, he said, the board’s letter failed to mention a “limited reopeners” clause for school year 1986-87 contained in the district’s offer.

The union “denies that an offer of a term ending on June 30, 1985, was made on Friday and demands a retraction of that board letter,” a statement released by the union said.

Both sides agreed that the district offer included a provision requiring new employees to pay an annual “agency fee” to the union, regardless of whether they become members. The association, however, wants all non-members to pay the equivalent of annual union dues.

The two sides have been at loggerheads for months, and an impartial mediator has been unable to settle the dispute. Earlier this month, a one-day sickout at two of the district’s seven high schools disrupted classes, as did student walkouts in support of teachers at several schools last week.

Monday’s letter, signed “Board of Trustees,” warned teachers that work slowdowns or stoppages would result in disciplinary action. It also advised them that “claimed illness from this day and until further notice will require certification by a medical doctor or other authenticated, reliable evidence of illness that is acceptable to the district.

“In addition,” the letter continued, “teachers who encourage students to be truant from classes or leave school or who do not provide instruction in the classroom will be disciplined appropriately.”