Teacher Talks: One Strike Threat; One Agreement

As teachers in the Orange Unified School District announced that they would stage a one-day strike next week to protest lack of a pay-raise agreement, the Santa Ana Unified School District and its teachers’ union late Thursday reached a tentative settlement in a bitter nine-month dispute.

If the walkout takes place in Orange Unified as scheduled Tuesday, it will be the first in the 25-year history of the school district, according to Supt. John Ikerd.

The last teacher strike in Orange County was a six-day walkout by Tustin Unified instructors in October, 1986.

In Santa Ana Unified, the settlement reached Thursday night during a two-hour special meeting provides a 5% salary increase for employees, retroactive to the 1987-88 school year and a 7% pay hike for 1988-89, according to district spokeswoman Diane Thomas.

In Santa Ana Unified, the average teacher’s salary is $38,500, and pay ranges from $20,670 to $41,383, according to school district figures.

Employee Benefits

The package agreement reached Thursday evening also requires the district to maintain the current level of employee benefits without an additional cost to employees and provide step increases retroactive to July 1, 1987, Thomas said. Coaches, bilingual teachers and other specialists will receive stipend increases beginning July 1, 1988. And members of the teachers’ union will hold an election before May 18 to decide whether to charge an agency fee to new teachers who do not join the union under terms of the contract.

Santa Ana teachers had planned mass picketing this morning at Valley High School. Santa Ana’s teachers authorized a strike last month but had set no date for a walkout.

While negotiators had problems ironing out other details, including the agency fee, both sides had said the major disagreement was over salary.

“It’s a settlement we can recommend for ratification,” Bill Ribblett, executive director of the Santa Ana Educators Assn. told United Press International. He said the new package will be put up for a vote by teachers Tuesday.

Thomas said the district is pleased with the settlement.

“It’s been a long time coming, and a lot of people have worked a long time for it. Now we can all get back to the business of education,” Thomas said.

Interrupts the Process

“In our opinion, these disagreements should be handled at the negotiating table,” she said, referring to the planned picketing. “We disagree with anything that interrupts the educational process.”

Santa Ana’s teacher dispute had tended to overshadow other teacher-contract struggles in recent days in Orange County. But Orange Unified’s teachers frequently have picketed schools and the homes of school board members in recent months over their unhappiness about their pay.

The sprawling Orange Unified district has 37 schools in Orange, Villa Park, and parts of Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana, with about 24,500 students and 1,100 teachers.

As in the case of several other labor-troubled school districts in Orange County, Orange Unified teachers have been negotiating unsuccessfully for a 1987-88 pay raise.

Union officials in Orange Unified said contract negotiations have been in progress since February, 1987. The issue in that district centers on pay and benefits being renegotiated from an existing contract that does not expire until 1990. That contract provides for such “reopeners.”

Orange Unified teachers have asked for a 3.15% pay increase for the current school year and the same percentage raise for next year. The district has offered 2.54% and only for the current school year. According to district figures, the average teacher salary is $33,307 and the pay ranges from $21,686 for a beginning teacher to $40,628 for the district’s most senior instructor.

“Our teacher representatives voted unanimously for the strike Thursday afternoon, and we’re going out Tuesday,” said Mark Rona, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn. “The strike is for one day, but it could become a (continuous) rolling strike. We’re fed up.”

Supt. Ikerd said Thursday he was disappointed that teachers had decided to strike before both sides hear a “fact-finding” report. “We’re scheduled to meet with the fact-finders on Monday,” said Ikerd. “I’m hopeful there will be something beneficial in the report for both sides and that maybe we can bring closure to this issue.”

In labor struggles, “fact-finding” is the final stage before a strike. Fact-finding involves a three-person team that looks into the disputed issues and makes non-binding recommendations. One fact-finder is appointed by the union, one by the school district, and the third is mutually agreed upon.

Fact-Finding Stage

Orange Unified has been in the fact-finding stage for about three months, Ikerd said. Santa Ana Unified only this week moved into the fact-finding stage. In a tape-recorded message, the Santa Ana Educators Assn. on Thursday informed callers that a state mediator had “certified fact-finding” early Thursday morning.

The recording said the move came after negotiations ended at 3:30 a.m. Thursday without a settlement. The Santa Ana teachers’ last contract expired July 1.

The Santa Ana union, which originally asked for a 9% pay raise this year, had said it would settle for a 6% raise this year coupled with a 6.5% raise for next year. The school district’s last publicly announced offer to the teachers was for a 3% pay raise and a 2% one-time-only payment for the current school year. The school district’s earlier offer did not include any pay proposal for the 1988-89 school year.

School board members in both Orange Unified and Santa Ana Unified have repeatedly noted that the state only gave schools a 2.54% pay increase this year. The school boards have said that is all that they could afford to pass on to teachers without dipping into reserves or cutting education programs.

Rona, president of the Orange Unified teachers’ union, said Thursday that he believes that school superintendents “got together” to use the 2.54% argument as a massive argument. “I think they got together because they all seem to be using (it),” he said.

Fringe Benefits

In addition to basic salary, the Orange Unified dispute also involves fringe benefits and the teachers’ demands for revision of the basic pay-step schedule. A pay-step schedule provides for automatic advances in salary as teachers increase in seniority and units of advanced education.

Ikerd said Orange Unified’s school board has offered a 2% increase in fringe benefits in addition to the 2.54% basic salary offer for this year.

“We’ve been close to strikes in this district before, but we’ve never had one,” Ikerd said Thursday night.