Teacher Strike Plan Brings Honig Blast at Union Leadership

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig on Monday sharply criticized leadership of county teacher unions that are either planning or threatening to strike on Wednesday.

Honig’s blast came as Huntington Beach City School District union officials announced Monday that its teachers will stage a one-day strike Wednesday. Union officials in the Orange Unified School District said their teachers will probably also strike Wednesday if contract settlements have not been reached.

Teachers in the Westminster School District had threatened to join the Wednesday strike but tentatively settled their contract dispute Monday night. “Our participation is off now,” said Marty Kahn, a union official for the Westminster Teachers Assn.

The remaining two unions are trying to negotiate teacher pay raises. The districts have said they are strapped financially because the state budgeted an increase of just 2.54% for schools this year.

The unions have said the school districts have other sources of money, including reserves from previous years, to tap for the teachers’ pay.

In an unusual move, Honig interjected himself in the county disputes by saying teachers in the districts are getting bad advice and direction from their union leaders.

Honig said at his Sacramento office that education’s basic money problem is at the state level in Sacramento, not in local school districts. He called leaders of the three county unions “renegades” who are ignoring the financial facts and misleading the teachers.

“The (teacher union) leadership in those school districts doesn’t seem to take in the broad fiscal picture,” Honig said. “They seem to be saying, ‘We want ours now, and forget the facts and forget the numbers.’ I’m not sure that’s good for the teachers.

“In other areas of the state, such as San Diego and Sacramento, the leadership has recognized it was a tough (financial) year and have cooperated (in reaching contract settlement). What’s going on in Orange County seems out of place with what’s happened in other counties in the state. There seems to be a local militancy by the leaders of the teachers--a desire to make names for themselves.”

Honig’s criticism produced a sharp rebuttal from one of the union leaders, Mark Rona, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn.

“Honig has no business messing in our negotiations,” he said. “He got involved last week when he advised our school board that there might be a shortfall of money up in Sacramento. That scared the hell out of our board members, and they were already nervous.

“Honig should stay out of this. He’s not such a great negotiator himself. Every time he gets in a fight with Deukmejian, the education budget suffers.”

Honig has had a history of bitter public disputes with Gov. George Deukmejian about education funds.

Carol Autrey, president of the Huntington Beach Elementary Teachers Assn., said: “What can I say? The big boss is mad at me. But I think he should stay out of it.”

Kahn, executive director of the West Orange County United Teachers, a federation of local teacher unions, said that he is displeased by Honig’s remarks: “I think that Mr. Honig has forgotten what it’s like to be a teacher. I think he ought to be aiming his criticism at the governor and the (state) Legislature rather than at the teachers.”

Kahn said the negotiators for Westminster Teachers Assn. on Monday night agreed to accept, pending a ratification vote by the union, a pay raise for the current school year that compounds to 3.02% overall. A 1.5% raise would be retroactive to July 1, and another 1.5% would be retroactive to Feb. 1.

In addition, the district agreed that whatever cost-of-living raises the state allots to schools in 1988-89 will be passed on to the teachers as a pay raise for that year. The agreement provides that the school district continue to pay all costs of teacher health benefits for the current school year, Kahn said.

Under the tentative agreement, next year a joint teacher-administrator committee will seek ways of keeping health benefits cost free to teachers.

Before 1978, the bulk of school financing came from property taxes imposed at the local level. But in June, 1978, the state’s voters passed Proposition 13, a constitutional amendment that rolled back property tax rates, put a lid on how much property taxes could grow and restricted other forms of new taxes, tying them to approval by a two-thirds majority of the voters.

To keep school systems afloat, the state since 1978 has shifted large amounts of money to school districts. Most of the tax dollars for public schools now come from the state rather than local governments.

The three unions last week announced that they were considering a joint strike Wednesday, which is the state’s official “Day of the Teacher.” A fourth union, in the Magnolia School District in the Anaheim area, also contemplated joining in the strike, but it reached tentative agreement on a pay raise last week.

‘Feet Are in Concrete’

Autrey announced Monday morning that the Huntington Beach elementary teachers will strike Wednesday regardless of what happens in the other districts. Autrey noted that the teachers had previously voted authorization for a strike. She said the work action was being called because “the school district is telling us their feet are in concrete and they aren’t going to budge (in offering more money).”

Autrey added, “The purpose (of the strike) is to get the district to see the handwriting is on the wall.”

The Huntington Beach teachers have asked for a 5.5% pay raise, retroactive to July 1. The school district has offered a 3.5% pay raise, coupled with .8% increase in fringe benefits.

“Since the state only gave us a 2.54% increase, anything we spend above that amount is deficit spending,” Huntington Beach City School District Supt. Diana Peters said.

“Of course we’d like to give more to our teachers. But just to pay for what we have offered, our district must cut $500,000 from our budget somewhere else.”

According to Assistant Supt. Ron Brown, the district currently has an average teacher salary of $37,190. Brown said current pay ranges from $19,213 for a beginning teacher to $42,009 for the most senior, highly paid instructor.

Peters said the school district has repeatedly asked the teachers’ association to take the budget books “and study them and see that our budget is not padded.”

She said that parent groups and others have taken up the offer but that teachers have declined to inspect the financial records of the district.

Autrey denied that. “We’ve studied and studied the books,” she said and added that the union believes there is more money available to increase the district’s offer.

“The district is getting more in interest and in lottery money than it expected this year,” she said.

Peters, however, said the district budget has been stretched as far as it will go. She also agreed with Honig that the financial problem is at the state level.

The 216 teachers in the eight elementary schools in Huntington Beach are under a contract that expires June 30. The stalemated talks are over what is called a “reopener” in that contract for a new pay raise.

Peters said the existing contract has a no-strike clause: “The teachers agreed to the no-strike provision when we negotiated that contract, because they wanted agency shop. That contract is still valid.