Talks Begin on Teacher Salaries

Representatives of the Los Angeles Unified School District board and its teachers’ union went into negotiations at school district headquarters Sunday in an effort to end their yearlong labor dispute.

After about four hours, the head of the teachers’ union, Wayne Johnson, emerged to say that he would “pull the plug” on the talks if more rapid progress was not made quickly.

Johnson said the teachers, who have been seeking a 12% one-year pay increase, had reduced their demand to 11%. But he said no counter offer had been received from the school board, which had retired to a closed-door session.

The entire school board and officers of the union were in attendance. A state mediator was shuttling information between the two sides. The talks had been billed as face-to-face, around-the-clock negotiations, but as of Sunday evening, Johnson, school board President Roberta Weintraub and their respective aides had not sat down together.