Teachers Seek New Talks in Anaheim Strike

Amid reports that some of a $2.5-billion state budget surplus may go to schools, Anaheim Union High School District teachers, who staged a 1-day strike last week, said Thursday that they will ask administrators to return to the bargaining table to resolve their bitter contract dispute.

Representatives from each of the district’s 19 campuses attended a special meeting at union headquarters Thursday and agreed to ask school administrators to postpone taking the labor dispute to fact-finding, a process in which a representative of the state Public Employment Relations Board examines the school district’s financial status.

In a surprise announcement Wednesday, Gov. George Deukmejian disclosed that the state will probably have a $2.5-billion surplus, and educators statewide are hoping that much of the windfall will go to schools. The surplus could, for example, mean a settlement for teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, who have been on strike since Monday.

Hope for Settlement

Leonard Lahtinen, president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Assn., said his district’s 900 teachers are hopeful that the surplus could lead to a settlement of their drawn-out wage dispute. If not, he said the teachers may consider another strike in the coming school year.

“We are going to be communicating with the district to go back to the bargaining table to reach a settlement with us,” he said. “If the district is not willing to do that, we are suggesting that we stay in mediation until July 1 . . . after the state budget is adopted and see if we can get a settlement.

“If we fail to get a settlement (by July 1) through mediation, then we can go through with the fact-finding,” Lahtinen said. “Also, we have decided to take a strike action early this fall if don’t have a settlement (during the summer).”

Lahtinen said the union would be mailing letters to school trustees today, requesting that they resume negotiations with teachers.

But Anaheim Union Assistant Supt. LeRoy Kellogg said Thursday that there is no definite word yet on whether the surplus will indeed translate into more dollars for his financially strapped school district, which serves intermediate and secondary students in most of Anaheim, as well as La Palma and Cypress. District administrators have said they cannot meet the teachers’ demands because more than 2 decades of declining enrollment has eroded the district’s finances.

“We have no idea,” Kellogg said. “We’re still planning to go to fact-finding at this stage of the game.”

Revised Budget Due

Kellogg said Deukmejian is scheduled to release a revised budget soon that will outline what will happen to the budget windfall.

“But until we get hard figures, there’s not much to get excited about until you know what it is,” he said. “We know it’s going to help districts throughout the state, but to what extent, we do not know.”

Anaheim teachers have been working without a contract since last August.

According to the offer from the district for this year, teachers could receive about a 1% salary increase because the raise is tied to budget surpluses. The association has said it is willing to accept that. But for next year, teachers are seeking a 3.2% increase, equal to the state’s projected inflation rate, plus a portion of the surplus after the district sets aside a 3% reserve.