Bargaining Is Revived on School Strike Issues : Informal Sessions With Legislators Bring New Face-to-Face Talks; Another Meeting Set Today

In an unusual move to determine who is telling the truth in the increasingly bitter Los Angeles teachers’ strike, area legislators called both sides to Sacramento on Tuesday for a series of informal closed-door meetings that ended with a face-to-face bargaining session.

Union and school district delegations flew separately to the capital in an effort to resolve some of the confusion over conflicting reports of salary offers and perhaps bring the strike, now in its second week, closer to an end.

Sources said the aim of the impromptu face-to-face talks, which lasted almost two hours and ended after 9 p.m., was to lay the groundwork for substantive bargaining sessions and to come up with a list of issues still dividing the two sides.

Signs of Movement

When the session broke up, Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) would say only that she was “very, very pleased” that the two sides had agreed to ask a state mediator to meet with them in Los Angeles this afternoon.

As the meetings began early Tuesday afternoon, state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) described what was taking place as “a fact-finding mission.”

“We are hoping we can bring them back to the table. . . . If we can help, we will do it,” said Roberti, who was one of 19 Democratic Assembly and Senate members who met with union and school board representatives in a series of separate meetings.

Also discussed was the windfall $2.5-billion state surplus announced last week. The Los Angeles Unified School District may be in line for as much as $48 million in additional funds this year, school officials said. But the Legislature and governor’s office must still determine when the money will become available and just what part of it can be designated for teachers’ salaries.

Although both sides described the talks with legislators as cordial, they were unsure what impact they might ultimately have on the strike.

The legislators are “interested in what we had done and why we had done it and they wanted to know how they could be helpful,” said school board member Jackie Goldberg.

School board members say they offered teachers a three-year contract with guaranteed 8% raises each year in a bargaining session that ended in rancor Sunday. Union officials have denied that any such offer was formally made.

Before leaving for Sacramento on Tuesday morning, United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson again insisted that a formal offer was never made and he volunteered to take a polygraph test to prove his point.

Johnson, who last week called for a 26% increase over three years, said Tuesday that an increase of 8% each year “is somewhat of an acceptable figure . . . an offer we would consider as part of a package.”

Conditions for Talks

Johnson also announced in the morning that he was ready to resume bargaining Tuesday night, but only if the school board agreed to a face-to-face session.

But district spokeswoman Diana Munatones said that the next round of negotiations will take place “when the state mediator asks us, not when Johnson decides.” The face-to-face meeting in Sacramento was apparently at the urging of state legislators.

Munatones conceded that the 24% offer was “informal” but insisted that the district would have formalized it if union representatives hadn’t “scoffed” and “angrily rejected it immediately.” She added that the 24% offer is “no longer on the bargaining table” and that the district’s “formal” offer remains 21.5% over three years.

As both sides were heading north Tuesday morning, 686 more teachers crossed the picket lines and returned to classrooms. More students were trickling in as well.

Attendance reports for the day showed that 300,944 of the district’s 594,000 students attended class Tuesday--up 7,426 from Monday, but still down considerably from the 430,000 figure on the first day of the strike.

In addition, the district canceled its 4-A division baseball championship playoffs because of the walkout, affecting 16 senior high school boys’ teams. The head coaches of all the teams refused to coach during the strike, district officials said.

Separate Flights

With relations worsening between the two sides since talks broke off and with no new negotiating session slated, Johnson, with two aides, and school Supt. Leonard Britton and two school board members caught separate late-morning flights to Sacramento to discuss the situation.

Union officials said that Assemblywoman Teresa Hughes (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, had been in touch with Johnson.

“She wanted the full story from each side why there isn’t a settlement,” said union spokeswoman Catherine Carey.

In addition to Britton, school board members Roberta Weintraub, Goldberg, negotiator Dick Fisher and financial officer Robert Booker made up the district’s contingent.

District officials said board President Weintraub had received a call from Assemblywoman Waters on Monday morning, inviting the district to the capital to explain the breakdown in talks and the state funding situation.

“We were summoned to come up here,” said Goldberg during the flight north. “The Los Angeles delegation called to say, ‘What’s going on down there?’ They called it an invitation but I felt definitely summoned. . . . They wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

By the time the talks finally ended Tuesday night, the district and union representatives had missed the last flight of the day from Sacramento and were scurrying to find Los Angeles-bound flights from other Bay area cities.

In the marathon session, both sides said they lobbied for early release of the extra state funds.

But state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig called the issue of the extra money irrelevant as long as the school board is willing to pay a guaranteed 24% pay increase. Until Sunday, the district’s highest offer had been the 21.5% pay increase, with an additional 2.5% contingent on available funds from Sacramento.

“I don’t know why the strike is continuing,” Honig said. “There is no reason if everyone agrees 8-8-8 is fair.

“All they have to do is go into a room and (agree). It’s unconscionable to me they haven’t worked it out.”

But Johnson has refused to be pinned down on whether the union would accept a 24% offer unless other concessions are made by the district on such things as school management and wages lost by teachers during pre-strike job actions. “I’m not prepared to say yes or no,” Johnson said of the offer.

Teachers’ Responses

On the picket lines Tuesday, teachers differed on whether they would accept a 24% package. But many agreed with Johnson that it would take more than money to get them back in the classroom.

“It’s beyond money--it’s a matter of principle,” said Rosalind Williams, a seven-year teacher at Manual Arts High School.

Echoed Jefferson High School teacher Cathy Armstrong, “We’ve been underpaid so long, it would have to be a magnificent offer to be something that a person could live on. My feeling is if we can really improve the working conditions and have school-based management, I believe most teachers would be willing to make a compromise.”

Besides the wage issue, a major sticking point is a board proposal that school management councils, to decide such issues as school discipline, be evenly divided between teachers and district appointees.

Union leaders say the proposal is unacceptable because it gives teachers insufficient power in deciding school issues.

Current starting pay for Los Angeles teachers is $23,440 and the top is $43,319, although that amount can be raised by extracurricular and summer school duties.

In a related development Tuesday, the state Court of Appeal denied the union’s request for emergency relief against the district’s withholding of paychecks from teachers who have refused to submit roll books and student attendance records and grades.

About 16,500 of about 28,000 regular teachers have already complied with the superintendent’s earlier directive that they turn in the records, the district said.

Feldman reported from Los Angeles and Enriquez from Sacramento. Also contributing were Times staff writers Charisse Jones and Marita Hernandez in Los Angeles and Jerry Gillam in Sacramento.