Huntington Beach Teachers Authorize Leaders to Call Strike

Huntington Beach elementary school teachers Wednesday authorized their union leaders to declare a strike if salary demands are not resolved in their contract negotiations.

About 165 of the Huntington Beach City School District’s 212 teachers voted in secret ballots Wednesday at a closed meeting at Isaac L. Sowers Middle School.

Carol Autrey, president of the Huntington Beach Elementary Teachers Assn., said about 91% of the teachers voted to authorize the union leadership to take “whatever actions they deem appropriate.”

A strike, however, is just one option, Autrey said. Teachers could also exercise a “work slowdown,” working just the required 37 1/2 hours each week and eliminating such after-school hour duties as parent-teacher meetings.

The teachers are seeking a 4% pay raise retroactive to July 1, 1987, and a 2% pay increase retroactive to Feb. 1. The school board has offered a 3.5% pay boost.

Autrey said the teachers’ current three-year contract expires June 30, but that the union has been negotiating with the district for nearly a year on a new two-year contract.

“We’ve never gone this long in bargaining,” she said. School district officials “are like ostriches with their heads in the sand. It’s a real problem. And I think the district needs to wake up to that.”

Julie Voce, a teacher at William E. Kettler School who attended the meeting, agreed: “We’re frustrated because we haven’t been taken seriously from the very beginning.”

But Assistant Supt. Ron Brown, who described talks with the teachers as “very calm,” said that to give the 3.5% pay raise it has offered teachers, the district would already need to dip into its fiscal reserves, reducing them to 4%.

The district would also have to cut $500,000 from its budget next year, Brown said.

“We’re at the last final offer from the board’s point of view,” Brown said. “Quite frankly, it’s all the district can afford.” Brown also noted that there is a no-strike clause in the existing contract, so “any strike would be illegal.”

Autrey acknowledged the contract’s no-strike clause, saying: “We would not ask teachers to do anything that was not protected, that would jeopardize them.” She declined to elaborate.

The average teacher salary in the district is $37,190. And salaries range from $19,213 for a beginning teacher to $42,009 for a senior instructor, Brown said.

A crisis committee, consisting of a teacher representative from each of the district’s eight schools, is scheduled to meet today to decide what action the union might take, Autrey said.

“We prefer peace,” she said. “We don’t like being at odds with the district. But they’re not going to get labor peace without making some kind of offer to improve on what they’ve already offered.”

A meeting of the teachers’ union, district officials and a state mediator is scheduled for Friday.