Court Tells Compton Teachers to End Strikes

A Los Angeles judge on Monday extended his recent order barring teachers from staging more walkouts in their four-month salary dispute with the Compton Unified School District.

Saying he believes that teachers have a right to strike, Superior Court Judge Richardo A. Torres nonetheless granted an indefinite injunction directing the 1,200 members of the Compton Education Assn. to remain in their classrooms or face contempt charges that could result in jail terms.

Torres said he based his ruling on a decision last month by the state Public Employment Relations Board, which found that the teachers’ 16 days of intermittent strikes since November had caused “a total breakdown” of Compton’s educational system.

The intermittent nature of the strike, the board found, placed an undue strain on a district already plagued with financial shortages, decaying facilities, low employee morale and a predominantly black and Latino student population that has been educationally disadvantaged for years.

The judge told union attorney Rosalind D. Wolf that he would consider lifting his order and allowing further strikes if teachers can prove that district officials are committing new unfair labor practices unrelated to the salary deadlock.

Compton teachers, the lowest paid in Los Angeles County, are seeking at least a 7% raise over each of the next three years.

Officials for the school district, however, say they can afford to give only a 5% increase this year, plus a 1% bonus to be followed by raises of 2% and 3% over the subsequent years.

“He (Torres) just gave a repressive district an opportunity to be more repressive,” union executive director Wiley Jones said angrily.

Compton Supt. Ted D. Kimbrough said Torres’ ruling stands as “a clear message that in our particular case irreparable damage was occurring” to the district’s 27,000 students.

Although Torres’ ruling will not set a legal precedent unless it is upheld on appeal, the state board’s general counsel, Jeffrey Sloan, acknowledged that “school districts statewide are following this.”