L.A. Teachers Strike as Talks With District Fail

Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District began their first strike in 19 years today, as the district’s 594,000 students faced a day of upheaval and confusion.

Last-minute maneuvering by district and teacher union leaders failed to avert the walkout, even though representatives of both sides were in telephone contact into the night Sunday.

Picketing is set to begin at schools at 7 a.m. today and a flurry of other activity is expected in the streets and courtrooms of Los Angeles.

The union estimates that 20,000 of the 32,000 teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors in the district will not work. But the district pledges to keep schools open and urged parents to send their children to school.

In an interview, Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said of the informal negotiations Sunday: “We are talking back and forth all the time and proposing ‘what if, what if.’ I think we will keep pushing . . . but it may take more time than we’ve got.”

Johnson said the strike might last only a day or two if talks prove fruitful. But he said political divisions on the school board were complicating matters.

Los Angeles school board President Roberta Weintraub told a press conference Sunday: “There is nothing dramatically new. The lines on this issue have been clearly drawn and the ball is in the union’s court.”

The Los Angeles school board remained on call but had no plans to meet again in formal session until Wednesday, district officials said.

Board member Julie Korenstein said Sunday that she and board members Warren Furutani and Jackie Goldberg favor raising the current offer of a 21.5% raise over three years based on assurances by several state legislators that the district will probably receive about $34 million in extra state money for the fall term.

But those three members could not persuade the board majority during Saturday’s closed-door board meeting to increase the district offer, Korenstein said. She described the session as “very tense, very uncomfortable . . . there were hard feelings.”

The union said that the unanticipated surplus in state revenue should be used for a 10% retroactive raise this year, between 5.5% and 9% in the upcoming year and 8% the following year.

Union representatives were planning to picket as early as 2 a.m. at food and supply warehouses that service the schools, in hopes that drivers would not make deliveries. “We just don’t want to miss any opportunity to stop the system. Maybe it will take that to get the school board to pay attention,” said Catherine Carey, a union spokeswoman.

At 9 a.m., the union is expected to sponsor eight large rallies in parks throughout the Los Angeles area. The union also prepared strike headquarters, mainly at other unions’ offices, for each of the administrative regions within the district.

District officials conceded that they cannot staff every classroom in a strike. About 500 new substitute teachers have been hired and 500 administrators with teaching credentials will be assigned to classrooms, in addition to the regular substitute teachers willing to cross picket lines, they said.

Irene Yamahara, district associate superintendent for personnel, said Sunday that substitutes fearful of driving their cars to their assignments can show up at regional offices and be transported in district buses to the schools. To prevent vandalism, their cars will be left in fenced and guarded parking lots, she said.

Teachers plan to picket at those assignment spots, in hopes that the bus drivers will not transport the substitutes. However, the drivers may be independent contractors, without union allegiance, said union sources.

Associate Supt. Gabriel Cortina said principals will have the toughest jobs today. “They’re going to have to make some very quick judgments in the morning and work with whatever staff they have . . . to sort kids out properly.”

‘Kids on Other Side’

“We are calling out for parents and volunteers to come to school and remember that it is the kids on the other side of the picket line,” Cortina said. “If they cross the line . . . they’re helping the kids. I hope people can find it in their consciences that they will be helping the kids and not take sides with the district or the union.”

Jay Roth, one of the attorneys representing the union, said he would go to the state Court of Appeal today to seek an emergency injunction suspending district Supt. Leonard Britton’s order that teachers must hand in grades by today or face withholding of pay for the month ended last Friday. In February, a Superior Court judge ruled on a similar order that the matter should be reviewed by the state Public Employment Relations Board, not the courts.

Asked what the union would do if it won such an injunction, union President Johnson said that would depend on whether there were progress in the negotiations. “We’d have to do some quick rethinking. We might conceivably call off the strike and go back to the original strike date of the 30th.” The union moved up the strike by two weeks in response to Britton’s grade order.

Weintraub, speaking for the board majority, praised the district’s current offer, calling it “the best in the nation” among the country’s largest school districts.

Budget Cuts Promised

The board has agreed to make about $120 million in budget cuts over the next two years but, Weintraub said, a board majority is unwilling to make deeper budget cuts for salaries.

District officials said that teachers by the end of a one-week strike will lose about 2.5% of their annual pay, the same percentage that separates the district’s offer from the union’s demand.

Weintraub, who urged parents to send their children to school today, acknowledged that there will be some confusion at many schools.

“It will be difficult,” Weintraub said. “Schools will range from no teachers out to all teachers out; student attendance will definitely and decidedly be down.”

Helen Bernstein, a teachers union vice president, said her members were being reminded of last-minute details and duties for a strike through a telephone network on Sunday. Teachers were being assigned picketing duties at various sites around the school district at different times of the day,” she said.

“We’re telling everybody it’s a go,” said John Fernandez, the union chairman at Roosevelt High School.

District spokeswoman Diana Munatones said school police officers have been asked to work 12-hour shifts to avert trouble on the 600 campuses of the nation’s second-largest school district, which struggled through a strike of nearly three weeks in 1970. In addition, the district may hire off-duty officers from other local jurisdictions.

“We don’t expect any problems maintaining security, but you never know how things can flare up,” Munatones said.

Spokesmen for the Los Angeles Police Department and county Sheriff’s Department said they had no plans for extra security measures in preparation for the strike.

However, Lt. Frank Valdez, watch commander in the Police Department’s gang-plagued 77th Division, said he was concerned about security both on and off campus during the strike.

“The problem kids . . . are not going to go to school and it’s going to create problems all over, not just on campus,” Valdez said. “What I’m mainly concerned about is basically the safety of the other people with all these little predators out on the street.”

About 20 parents and children demonstrated outside the union headquarters on West 3rd Street Sunday afternoon. Chanting “UTLA, NO WAY” and carrying signs with slogans such as “Holding Our Students’ Grades Is Criminal,” they placed most of the blame for the current impasse on the union and said they feared that the withholding of students’ grades by teachers could harm the students, especially those heading off to college.

Among them was Annie Richardson, who ran unsuccessfully two years ago for the district’s South-Central area seat held by Rita Walters. “UTLA is about the business of taking control of the district,” she said, referring to the union’s election push for friendly candidates on the board and its desire for teachers to have a majority voice on proposed school governing councils.

By striking before a state fact-finder’s report is issued, and thus possibly breaking the law, teachers are setting “a poor example for telling our children to obey rules,” she said.

The fact-finder’s report is expected to be issued on Wednesday and labor law experts said the district could ask that the union be fined, and its leaders possibly jailed, for striking before receiving the report. The union, however, says that Britton’s order about the grades was itself an unfair labor practice and a provocation to strike.

No one from the union was at the rally to talk to the parents. Union spokeswoman Carey said in a telephone interview that the parents should have demonstrated in front of the district’s offices instead. “Those parents are blaming the wrong people,” she said.

Confusion remains on the issue of health insurance coverage for striking teachers. The union says federal law requires district coverage to continue for 60 days, but the district disputes that. Contrary to comments by union President Johnson on Saturday, the district still insists that teachers send in checks for their own premium by today. However, the district has told health care providers not to refuse to treat any teacher, although the providers may ask teachers to sign a waiver agreeing to possibly pay for the services later.

Contributing to this article was Times education writer Elaine Woo.

THE DISTRICT, THE UNION AND THE LABOR DISPUTE THE DISTRICT: FACTS AND FIGURES

The Los Angeles Unified School District has 594,802 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade. The last day of classes for most students is June 23; the last day for teachers is June 26. District enrollment includes:

321,220 elementary students at 410 schools

117,447 junior high students at 73 schools

119,904 senior high students at 49 schools

27,094 magnet school students at 85 schools

5,022 opportunity and continuation school students at 55 schools

4,115 students at 18 schools for the disabled

The district also operates:

90 children centers

16 latchkey after-school programs

10 after-school enrichment programs

4 infant centers

The district has 32,000 employees, of whom 22,000 belong to United Teachers-Los Angeles. About 17,000 union members voted in favor of a strike. The district has 2,800 credentialed substitute teachers and 1,900 administrators with teaching credentials.

THE TEACHERS’ BARGAINING UNIT: FACTS AND FIGURES

The bargaining unit covered by the teachers’ union contract is made up of union and non-union employees. There is not a closed shop, so not all members of the bargaining unit belong to the union:

27,000 classroom teachers

2,800 substitute teachers

500 children’s center teachers

525 secondary counselors (junior and senior high school)

186 school attendance and adjustment services counselors

450 nurses

373 school psychologists

123 librarians

THE ISSUES

The teachers’ union is asking for a 21% pay increase over two years; the district is offering 21.5% over three years. The union’s salary demand for next year exceeds the district’s offer by an average of about $900 per teacher--or about $4 per workday. The average annual salary for district teachers is $36,000.

The two sides also disagree on non-monetary issues such as a preparation period for elementary teachers and how to expand teachers’ authority to make school decisions.

PLANS DURING STRIKE

The district has said it will keep all schools open with the help of substitutes and administrators, and will continue to operate after-school programs such as sporting events and day care. The district says coaches, drama and music teachers and others may direct students and sports teams in the afternoons and evenings, even if they participate on the picket lines during the day. But the union has asked teachers and coaches not to participate in any school activities. The district said no important end-of-the-year events would be canceled. Parents would act as prom chaperones, and administrators and substitute teachers would lead graduation ceremonies. But without final grades submitted by teachers, the awarding of diplomas might be delayed.

TELEPHONE HOT LINES

The district is operating telephone hot lines between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday:

General strike information: 213-625-KIDS

High school information: 213-345-GRAD

Adult education information: 213-62-LEARN

It also has a 24-hour recorded telephone hot line updated daily:

English: 213-625-4000

Spanish: 213-625-4643

The union has a hot line for teachers only, which is not made public.

Compiled by Times researcher Tracy Thomas. Sources: Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers-Los Angeles.

VARIOUS PARENT ROLES: Some parents to take sides, pitch in or play watchdog. Page 3