Teachers Unified on Arbitration Issue in Contract Dispute With L.B. Schools

Shortly before 7 a.m. last Friday, a group of teachers gathered at the gates of Poly High School. Forming a tiny knot in the early morning chill, the teachers ate doughnuts or blew on their hands while leaders distributed printed picket signs.

Within minutes, 47 of them were pacing up and down Atlantic Avenue amid occasional greetings--and many uncomprehending stares--of passers-by.

“We’re here to show the community that we’re united,” said Ed Graham, 44, a Poly social studies teacher who has been with the Long Beach Unified School District for 14 years.

Added Keith Fancher, who teaches film analysis and creative writing: “They have insulted us.”

By “they” he meant the Long Beach Board of Education which, for nine months, has been negotiating with the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach on a contract for the district’s 2,800 teachers to replace the one that expired Aug. 31.

Though the two sides have agreed on almost everything, they have continuously stumbled on one issue--binding arbitration for grievances--that has made this the longest and among the most bitterly fought negotiating seasons in district history.

Candlelight Vigil

An estimated 250 teachers at five locations took part in Friday’s demonstration. In recent weeks, the teachers also have picketed meetings of the school board and the homes and offices of its members, staged a candlelight vigil and distributed leaflets in supermarkets.

And although the teachers say they are not yet ready to strike, some recently staged a “unity day” during which they worked to the letter of their contracts, refusing to put in the extra hours they say have become routine parts of their jobs.

Teachers say they want binding arbitration--the right to call in neutral third parties to settle grievance disputes. The district says it opposes binding arbitration as a costly erosion of its power.

“If you are going to (have it) so that everything is decided by an outsider who has no stake in the outcome,” said board member James Zarifes, “then there is no reason to have elected board members. It erodes the whole concept of elected officials and undermines local control.”

‘Not Had a Fair Shake’

Countered Don Goddard, president of the teachers association: “Teachers have not had a fair shake from the school board in grievances.”

Goddard claims that of the “50 or so” grievances that have come before the board “in the last five or six years,” virtually none have been decided in favor of the teacher.

School officials offer a different set of statistics. Since 1978, district spokesman Richard Van der Laan said, an average of 16 grievances have been filed by teachers each year on issues ranging from pay disputes to transfer assignments to requests for leave of absence.

Of those, Van der Laan said, all but 38 were satisfied at lower levels; and of the 38 that came before the board, “in eight instances the board approved some remedy or change in favor of the teacher” though never admitting that a contract violation had occurred. In several cases, though, he said, the district ruled in favor of the teacher at lower levels in the procedure.

Whatever the case, Long Beach is one of the last holdouts against a process that seems to be rapidly overtaking the field of public education in Southern California.

Of the 42 unified school districts in the county, according to an October survey by the Los Angeles County School Employers Assn., 32 have agreements with their teachers allowing binding arbitration of grievances. In addition, according to the survey, four allow advisory arbitration in which the arbitrator suggests solutions to grievances which the parties are then free to accept or reject.

Requests for Arbitrators

In the last three to four years, according to Jean Willauer, tribunal administrator in charge of labor cases for the American Arbitration Assn., the number of school districts requesting professional arbitrators from her company has increased by 25% to 30%.

One of the largest private arbitration suppliers in California, the association provides professional arbitrators--usually people with years of experience in labor relations--at an average cost of $700 a day in about 200 Southern California school district disputes a year, Willauer said.

“Binding arbitration is known as a big-chip item,” said Tom McCarthy, who, as a presiding mediator for the state Mediation/Conciliation Service, frequently oversees school contract negotiations. He is mediating the Long Beach dispute.

That is part of the reason why Long Beach school officials feel they should not agree to it without some major concession on the part of the teachers. “We’ve made our move,” said Zarifes. “We feel we’ve made an excellent offer.”

Indeed, said Goddard, the teachers are willing to accept the financial terms of the district’s “final offer,” which would bring their annual salaries to $24,145 a year for beginners, $48,776 for those with doctorate degrees plus 15 years of experience. The average teacher would earn $37,115.

Current Salaries

Current salaries are $19,434 for beginners, $39,260 for a 15-year teacher with a doctorate and $29,874 for the average teacher.

A survey last year placed Long Beach among the highest-paying districts in the county in terms of salary, but among the lowest in the value of its benefits.

What the teachers cannot and will not accept, said Goddard, is a long-term contract without binding arbitration. So instead of accepting the district’s offer for the usual three years, the teachers association countered with the suggestion that the new contract be binding for only one.

The result is a standoff that, at the moment, shows no signs of dissipating.

“A one-year contract means that we would start negotiating (the next contract) . . . in 60 days,” Zarifes said. “Negotiating around the clock is not our real purpose.”

Not all board members agree with the body’s collective position. Harriet Williams, generally considered a liberal on most issues, said she had argued unsuccessfully during the board’s closed-door sessions in favor of binding arbitration.

“I’m very concerned,” Williams said of the standoff. “There are teachers out there who are really unhappy about this.”

‘Matter of Pride’

One of them is Dick Wilkinson, a language and literature teacher at Poly, who participated in last week’s demonstration. “It’s a matter of pride,” he said. “I’d feel more professional under binding arbitration.”

Another is Sandra Perez, a Wilson High School math teacher, who said that for the duration of the negotiations she is protesting the board’s position by discontinuing her longstanding practice of correcting papers on her own time at home.

“For many years we’ve been treated like little children,” Perez said. “With binding arbitration (we) could voice (our) views on certain subjects without feeling this tension.”

As a result of her protest, Perez said, tests that used to be returned in two days now take a week. “My message to the parents is that if they want quality education, we have to work for it together,” she said. “The district will never do anything unless it is pressured by the parents.”

Neither side was willing to predict what effect Monday’s scheduled arrival of new school Supt. E. Tom Giugni will have on the dispute. Though Giugni has a reputation among teachers as a tough negotiator, the Sacramento City Unified School District that he headed until last week has had binding arbitration for many years.

“It (binding arbitration) can be a good idea or a bad idea,” Giugni said in a recent telephone interview from his Sacramento office. “It truly depends on the local situation.”

Rejects One-Year Contract

But he quickly rejected the idea of accepting the teachers’ call for a one-year contract.

“If the contract is good enough to accept for one year, it should be good enough to accept for three,” Giugni said.

Goddard said the teachers plan to keep the pressure up by staging more demonstrations and “working to contract,” that is, refusing to perform extra services such as sponsoring school clubs or working after school unless specifically required to do so by their contracts. Most of the teachers interviewed for this story said they were unaware of anyone who has yet begun doing that.

Last month McCarthy was called in to mediate the negotiations after an impasse was declared. Should the teachers and the school district still be unable to reach agreement within a reasonable time, he said, a fact-finding process could be initiated under which outstanding issues would be submitted to a mutually agreed-upon panel for resolution.

And until then? “The situation is in abeyance,” said McCarthy. “We watch and see who blinks.”