Teachers Sue Over Wage Discrepancies : 197 Protest Policy Allowing New Hires to Get Bigger Paychecks

Protesting a Los Angeles school district policy that allows newly hired teachers to draw bigger paychecks than teachers with equal or greater experience and training, nearly 200 veteran teachers filed a lawsuit Wednesday demanding $2 million in back pay.

The pay discrepancies stem from a 1985 policy that enabled the district to attract teachers in certain shortage fields, such as mathematics and elementary grades, by offering them full credit on the wage scale for all of their prior experience and training.

Teachers hired in the same fields before July, 1985, were limited to a maximum of four years’ credit for previous teaching experience and given partial credit for training.

In addition, teachers who were rehired after an absence of more than 39 months--even those whose specialties were in demand--also were paid less than teachers with equal experience hired after July, 1985.

School district attorney Richard K. Mason said state law allows districts to establish such salary differences and the district did so in order to help fill teacher vacancies in several critical fields. He also said the district cannot afford to pay the veteran teachers at the level they are demanding.

197 File Suit

Lewis McCammon, a Belmont High School history teacher who has been fighting the district for several years on this issue, said that as many as 1,000 of the district’s 30,000 teachers have been shortchanged as a result of the policy. The 197 litigants in the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court are teachers hired between 1980 and 1985 in a variety of fields, as well as several school nurses.

“The district has been telling us they’re for collegiality and respecting teachers and making major reforms. Nothing is more disrespectful than to expect teachers to work for less money than someone who walks in the door behind them,” McCammon said.

McCammon, who teaches advanced-placement history and physics, claimed the districts owes him nearly $6,000 for his training, which includes a bachelor’s degree in physics and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history. That is the average amount owed to each of the teachers in the suit, he said.

Another teacher involved in the suit, Morrie Sachs, had returned to work for the district in 1983 after an absence of almost four years. He had served as a classroom teacher, teacher trainer and administrator for 27 years in Los Angeles, and for part of the time he was absent, he worked as a principal in another state.

When he was rehired by the district, he was credited for only four years of previous experience.

Sachs said he should be at the top of the salary scale, but “after 32 years in education, my salary last year was $31,000, gross.” Maximum pay for veteran teachers is about $43,000. Sachs said the district owes him as much as $15,000 in back pay.

Walter Cochran-Bond, the attorney for the teachers, said several recent court cases involving these issues have been settled in favor of the teachers, including a state appeals court ruling last November involving the San Francisco Unified School District.

Many of the teachers are also angry with United Teachers-Los Angeles, the local teachers’ union, for not pressing their case for them. The union agreed to the rules that resulted in the discrepancies during contract bargaining in 1985.

But union Vice President Frances Haywood said Wednesday that the union supports the teachers’ lawsuit and has made the district aware of the need to resolve the salary differences.