Teachers, Schools Move Strike Plans Into High Gear

With no new contract talks scheduled, preparations for the Los Angeles Unified School District’s first teacher strike in 19 years--set to begin Monday--moved into high gear Tuesday on both sides of the escalating labor dispute.

School district officials began to hone plans to keep the system’s 800 campuses open, including stepping up recruitment of substitute teachers and drawing up lists of school assignments for administrators who will be pressed into strike-relief service.

Meanwhile, the printing presses at United Teachers-Los Angeles headquarters near downtown Los Angeles were operating at full steam Tuesday, turning out picket signs and informational flyers, and union leaders scurried to open regional strike control offices and organize teachers at school sites.

Emotional Time

At individual schools, some teachers said they were still wrestling with their consciences, trying to decide whether to participate in the strike, while others who had made up their minds to walk out said they were girding themselves for a physically and emotionally trying time.

“I’m not a union member,” said Mauricio Gonzalez, a Belmont High School English instructor, “but I plan to honor the strike. I will stay out until teachers feel they have gotten what they deserve.”

Union leaders predicted that the majority of the district’s 32,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians will go on strike Monday and cripple basic school operations. It is uncertain how many teachers will participate in the strike, but last month more than 17,000 voted in favor of the drastic job action. Neither side could say how many of the 10,000 non-union members, who were not eligible to vote, might join the picket lines.

At Belmont High School, students were apprehensive but some said they supported the teachers. “We’re just innocent bystanders,” said senior Elvia Villalobos. “The board knows we’re getting the bad side of this, that we are the ones suffering, but it seems they don’t even care.”

The strike date, originally set for May 30, was moved up after Supt. Leonard Britton announced Monday that he was ordering teachers to turn in final grade information by May 15 or risk having the district withhold their paychecks.

“Teachers are even more angry now because of what (Britton) said,” said union spokeswoman Catherine Carey. “We are always going to get some (teachers) who are complacent. But the general feeling from talking with teachers in schools today . . . is that they are more set than ever to go on strike if they don’t have a contract. We won’t get 100% out. But we expect to get the vast majority out.”

Associate Supt. Gabriel Cortina said the district will keep all schools open. “The students will be safe and properly supervised,” he said. But (whether) they receive the same optimum level of instruction, we can’t guarantee that.”

Recruitment Plans

Cortina said the district is attempting to recruit substitute teachers throughout Southern California. The district’s personnel department is expanding the staffing for a centralized office handling the substitute recruiting.

He noted that the district will increase substitute pay--from $98 to $135 a day--for the duration of a strike. There are about 3,000 teachers in the district’s substitute pool, but it was uncertain how many would be willing to cross picket lines. A union official said that about 2,500 substitute instructors are union members.

In addition, Cortina said, “lists are being developed now” to determine the schools that central office administrators will be assigned to in the event of a strike. There are about 400 such administrators who have teaching credentials and could be deployed to cover classrooms.

All administrators have been told to cancel vacations or work-related trips they had scheduled to take before the end of the school year on June 23, as well as to cancel any nonessential school activities, such as awards ceremonies, Cortina said.

Anti-Truancy Plan

He said district officials also have contacted law enforcement agencies to assist schools in curbing truancy during a strike.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson on Tuesday disputed the district’s contention that it will be able to keep schools operating.

“They are trying to hire aides, they are trying to hire emergency teachers, and they are trying to hire parents (to cover classrooms). That will work for a couple of days and then it will break down. Kids are not going sit in classroom with an emergency substitute who doesn’t know what he’s doing or sit in classroom with parents and aides. Things will start to come apart.”

Johnson, who was a teacher at Hamilton High School during the five-week 1970 teachers’ strike, recalled conditions in the school then. He said that as the strike wore on, more than half of the students stayed away from school, a scenario he said was typical of the district’s high schools. Attendance was higher at elementary and junior high schools, he said, but for the most part no instruction took place.

The union has no strike fund. But it has secured about $40 million in credit lines from two Los Angeles banks to provide striking teachers with interest-free loans, Johnson said. Striking teachers can apply for $70 a day, and the total loaned would be repayable in two years.

Union officials on Tuesday also distributed to teachers a list of 19 “picket procedures,” including instructions to bring cameras to picket lines to “take pictures of individuals and/or vehicles attempting to cross your line” and to leave notes for substitutes advising them that they are “participating in strike-breaking activities.”

On a separate handout, the union asks teachers to remove all of their personal belongings, as well as lesson plan books, rollbooks and keys, from classrooms on the last day before the strike and to lock their desks and other storage areas. In addition, the union handout told teachers to encourage citizens to join the picketing but not to allow students to participate.

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this story.

CONTRACT STALEMATE TEACHER DEMANDS * 21% pay raise over two years--11% the first year, 10% the second. The union contends that the district has surplus funds to cover the increases. * Elimination of yard duty for elementary instructors. * A preparation period for elementary teachers. * Creation of a new decision-making councils at schools that give teachers more votes than administrators and parents and guarantee that principals will not have veto power. DISTRICT STANCE * 21.5% pay raise over three years--8% the first year, 5.5% the second, and 8% the third. The district says the second year increase could be 8% depending on the size of additional state monies that will be made available. But, the district denies it has surplus money to support the union’s pay demand. * Willing to eliminate yard duty for elementary teachers except in emergencies, in which case the district would pay teachers extra to serve. * Contends that a special preparation period for elementary teachers would cost too much. Wants each school to develop its own plan for decision-making councils, but wants administrators and parents to have equal say with teachers.