Settlement Still Eludes Bargainers; Teacher Strike Nears Week 2

The third round of bargaining talks in the Los Angeles Unified School District teachers’ strike produced no settlement Saturday, with little time left to prevent the walkout from entering its second week.

“I don’t know where it’s going to lead, but negotiations are continuing,” school board President Roberta Weintraub said after a three-hour negotiating session Saturday night at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown. The talks are scheduled to resume this afternoon and Weintraub stressed that today will be “a decisive day.”

Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said: “The teachers want a settlement . . . but they’re not willing to capitulate at this point.”

Earlier Saturday, the district school board and a council of union leaders held separate meetings to review bargaining positions and similar gatherings are planned for early today.

Knowledgeable sources said that both sides face risks if the strike goes into a second week. The union would lose some bargaining strength if a significant number of teachers drift back to work because of money worries. On the other hand, the school board would feel increased pressure for a settlement from angry parents and community leaders.

School Supt. Leonard Britton has said that a settlement would have to be reached by noon today for schools to be back to normal on Monday. And even if a contract were signed today, officials fear that it would be difficult to get the word of a settlement out.

Entering the Saturday afternoon meeting of his staff at union headquarters near MacArthur Park, Johnson disputed an earlier pessimistic report about the bargaining from district negotiator Dick Fisher.

The union chief charged that Fisher’s statement that talks were not progressing well was calculated to scare strikers back to work. “We are making proposals and counterproposals,” Johnson said. “How can you say that is not going well?”

Under the supervision of a state mediator, the talks have been held on three consecutive nights.

The school board, which has been sharply divided on settlement terms, met in closed session for about 90 minutes Saturday afternoon at the Bunker Hill offices of its law firm, O’Melveny & Myers, to review bargaining proposals. No vote was taken, officials said.

School board member Alan Gershman, leaving that meeting, compared the strike to a chess game in which the pawns have all been sacrificed. “The students have been hurt. . . . Hopefully, we are going to end soon,” said Gershman, who is in a tough campaign for reelection in a June 6 runoff in his Westside district.

Citing a news blackout, officials from both camps refused to give details of the proposals for a settlement.

Representatives on Call

The union’s House of Representatives is on call today for a ratification vote if a contract is ready. If a contract is approved by those representatives today, teachers would go back to work on Monday and hold a full membership ratification vote soon afterward, officials said.

After a seven-hour bargaining session Friday, Weintraub said she was “neither optimistic nor pessimistic” about a quick settlement, but said she thought the negotiating was “getting to the point where the issues are clearly defined.”

Meanwhile, parents are becoming increasingly upset about the strike’s effect on their families. Some are skipping work or taking their children along to their jobs rather than send them to understaffed campuses. According to the district, more than 600 parents have called the district urging a settlement.

Student attendance dropped drastically during the week, as youngsters wearied of substitutes and a diet of movies and makeshift readings. On Friday, only 259,128 of the 594,000 district students were at the morning attendance roll. About two-thirds of the district’s 32,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians remained on strike.

Fewer Strikers Expected

On Saturday, Johnson said he expected some attrition in the number of strikers if the walkout goes into a second week. But he added that he had “no doubt that the strike will remain strong.”

The talks are surrounded by uncertainty about how much of an enormous state tax windfall over the next two years will be available to raise teachers’ pay. Other issues include the elimination of school yard duties for elementary school teachers and the formation of school governing councils on which teachers would have a majority vote.

The last publicly announced position from the district offered an 8% retroactive raise for this year, between 5.5% and 8% next year depending on funds from the state surplus, and 8% the following year. The union’s last public position was for annual raises of 10%, 8% and 8% over three years.

Starting pay for Los Angeles teachers is $23,440 and the current top is $43,319 although some teachers earn more for extracurricular duties and teaching summer school. A state fact-finder’s report, released this week and angrily denounced by the union, described that range as among the best in the state. The report supported many of the district’s positions.