L.B. Teachers to Weigh Contract That Yields on Arbitration Issue

an unusual move, 1,900 members of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach will vote Friday on whether to endorse their union’s “last and best” offer of a contract for only one year instead of the three years proposed by the school district.

Under the terms of the proposed contract, teacher salaries would go up about 7.7% immediately and 24% over the next three years assuming that the state’s cost-of-living allowance remains constant, according to district spokesman Richard Van der Laan.

Thus, the minimum current salary of $19,434 would go to $24,145 and the maximum salary of $39,260 for a teacher with a doctorate and 15 years of experience would go to $48,776. Average teacher salaries in Long Beach would go from the current $29,874 to $37,115. The district’s offer includes $3 million in expected new lottery revenues, Van der Laan said.

But the contract does not offer binding arbitration, something the teachers have insisted on. To make that palatable, according to teacher association president Don Goddard, the union is willing to accept the proposed contract, but only for one year. “We’re not going to accept a three-year contract with no binding arbitration,” Goddard said.