Teachers Back at Work, but Issues Remain

Teachers in San Dimas and La Verne are back at work after a two-day strike last week, but the salary dispute that prompted their walkout is no closer to resolution, and the 4-year-old feud between the teachers union and the Bonita Unified School District remains unsettled.

“I’m glad it’s over. I’m pleased the teachers are back in the classroom with their students,” Supt. Duane Dishno said at a press conference earlier this week. “(But) the problems and issues that led to this strike still remain and still need to be resolved.”

District officials maintain that a 3.8% salary increase for the 1988-89 school year approved by the Bonita school board is their “best and final offer.” A larger increase, they say, would put the district in danger of going bankrupt.

The teachers association is seeking a 6.2% pay raise, which its leaders say is commensurate with the cost-of-living increase in state funding the district received. Union leaders say the district is overstating the severity of its financial constraints.

Salaries in the district range from $19,200 to $41,900. The association is also demanding teachers receive $3,412 annually in fringe benefits. The district has offered $3,000.

Objective Achieved

Although the strike failed to wring any concessions from the district, Bonita Unified Teacher Assn. President Dan Harden said the teachers achieved their objective.

“We believe it was very successful,” Harden said. “Our purpose in the strike was to make the community aware of the issues, and we believe we accomplished that.”

The teachers association’s executive board agreed to end the strike Sunday evening. The district had told the union that unless it received assurances by Friday afternoon that teachers would be back in the classroom on Monday, it would notify the 229 substitutes it used last week to be ready to work.

Substitutes receive $200 a day for teaching and $75 for each day they are on call but do not work.

Because the teachers association missed the deadline, the district will deduct the cost of retaining the substitutes--totaling more than $17,000--from the paychecks of the striking teachers.

Harden said the district has no right to garnish the wages of striking teachers.

Lawsuit Threatened

“We believe that to be illegal,” he said. “We have contacted the California Teachers Assn.’s legal staff, and if the district proceeds with this, we will file suit.”

Dishno said the district’s contract with the teachers association permits the deduction of the substitutes’ pay from the striking teachers’ salaries.

About 70% of the district’s 363 teachers participated in the strike, which cost the district roughly $40,000, spokeswoman Barbara Ward said. Costs to the district included hiring security officers, placing two full-page ads in local newspapers to inform residents of the district’s bargaining position and having substitutes on call early last week, Ward said.

The walkout was the district’s second in 18 months. After a one-day strike in March, 1987, parent Sharon Scott organized a one-day student boycott. Meanwhile, the teachers association campaigned aggressively for a change in the school board and the district’s administration.

Scott was elected to the school board last year on a platform of change, as were Biff Green and Robert Watanabe, both of whom were endorsed by the teachers association. Frank Bingham, a longtime board member, later resigned because of time conflicts with his job that had prevented him from attending most meetings.

A committee of teachers and parents succeeded in qualifying a ballot measure to recall board member Robert Green, who had taken a hard line in salary negotiations. But in February, Green held on to his seat by a 269-vote margin.

One of the first tasks facing the newly constituted board was finding a permanent successor for former Supt. James T. Johnson Jr., who had been a frequent target of teachers’ criticism. The board hired Dishno, who was credited with easing labor tensions as superintendent of the El Monte City School District.

Intransigence Charged

But despite all the new faces, teachers association leaders complain the district has remained intransigent in negotiations. They say last week’s strike was prompted by the school board’s refusal to be bound by the recommendations of a state-appointed fact-finder to settle the dispute over salary and benefits.

Fact-finding is the last step in collective bargaining, taken when negotiations with a mediator have failed to produce a settlement. Salary negotiations in the Bonita district have required fact-finding for the past three years, which is unique in the state, according to the California Teachers Assn.

Kathleen Maas, a mediator with the state Public Employment Relations Board, informed the district on Tuesday that she had approved its request to submit the salary dispute with teachers to fact-finding for a fourth straight year.

‘Pick and Choose’

In the past, the district has refused to accept the fact-finder’s recommendations in total, choosing instead to “pick and choose” what it agrees with, Harden said.

The district responded this week by issuing a list of recommendations made by fact-finders over the past three years. According to this list, the district had accepted most, but had rejected a 7% increase in salary and benefits one year (offering a 6% increase instead) and had twice rejected mandatory union fees for teachers.

School board members have said that to be bound by the recommendations of an outside party would amount to an abdication of the responsibility invested in them by voters.

Although they are back at work, teachers will continue to engage in “informational picketing” outside the district’s 12 schools, handing out literature to parents as they drop off and pick up their children, Harden said.

Most parents and other voters support the teachers’ contention that the district should agree to be bound by the fact-finder’s recommendations, Harden said. Steve Godbey, union spokesman, said the association has received more than 600 letters from residents backing the teachers.

Pressure to Settle

“All elected officials are ultimately responsible to the electorate,” Harden said. “We believe members of the community will put pressure on the board members to reach a settlement through binding fact-finding.”

Board members who would comment said the strike did not win community support for the teachers’ position, but instead angered residents who are weary of the constant discord in the district. They cite the overwhelming majority of parents who had their children cross the picket line and attend school during the strike.

“I think they alienated more people this time than before,” Robert Green said. “Before, there were charges that you had a board that wasn’t listening, an administration that wasn’t listening. Now, I think the community is saying, ‘Wait a minute--if one side had a change in personnel and there’s still a problem, maybe the problem is with the other side.’ ”

Disenchanted Rank and File

Scott said she believes the teachers association’s rank and file is also becoming disenchanted with the ongoing labor strife.

“They do not trust the union leadership,” she said. “I question whether that might have been one of the impacting factors in not continuing the strike.”

Godbey said community support for the teachers has been “fantastic,” and that the district’s claims to the contrary were predictable. “What else are they going to say, ‘Yeah, we’re wrong and the community is against us?’ ” he said.

Although a strike at the beginning of the school year was particularly hard on the teachers, who were not paid for the summer vacation, Godbey denied any discontent among the association’s membership.

“I think the teachers are still united in their determination to receive an equitable settlement,” he said. “As an association, we’re in a position of telling people to calm down for awhile. We had quite a few people who were upset that we went back to work this week.”