Teachers Try Slowdown in Huntington Beach Dispute

Teachers at a middle school in the Huntington Beach City School District are refusing to participate in extracurricular activities in hope of forcing district negotiators back to the bargaining table and settling a long and bitter contract dispute, union representatives said Wednesday.

The slowdown, begun earlier this week at Isaac L. Sowers Middle School, is a “grass-roots effort” started by teachers upset about the breakdown of formal negotiations, said Jim Harlan, executive director of the Huntington Beach Elementary Teachers Assn. Teachers at other schools have sent letters to parents explaining their dissatisfaction and may also participate in slowdowns, union officials said.

“We’ve been working without a contract since the first day of school in September,” said Rebbie Bates, an 8th-grade teacher at Sowers and a union negotiator.

Sowers teachers “represent 20% of this school district,” Bates said, “and we decided that we’re large enough that if we take a stand, the school board will notice.”

Similar slowdowns have begun at another Huntington Beach school district, Ocean View. Those teachers are also represented by the West Orange County United Teachers, which encompasses several teacher groups. Harlan said teachers in the Fountain Valley School District, also represented by the union, may take similar action.

Activities that will be affected at Sowers are an African festival for 6th graders, a Renaissance fair for 7th graders and a career fair for 8th graders, plus the schoolwide science fair. The 8th-grade promotion ceremony, a senior trip to Disneyland and a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm for exceptional students will go on as scheduled, but parents will accompany the students.

Sports teams are continuing to participate in league play, but intramural games have ceased.

District Supt. Diana Peters said parents have volunteered to supervise the festivals and fairs, but no decision has been made on whether to go on with them.

Contract talks in the Huntington Beach City District have broken down after nearly a year of negotiations and despite the intervention of a mediator. The dispute has reached the fact-finding stage, in which a three-person panel--composed of representatives appointed by the union, the district and the state--will meet to study each side’s position.

Harlan said the union hopes to work out a settlement before the fact-finding procedures, but Assistant Supt. Ron Brown, the district’s chief negotiator, said face-to-face talks are over as far as the district is concerned.

“I think it’s necessary that we go to fact finding,” Brown said. “My question is, how long do they want to negotiate? They’re asking for something we’re not willing to give--that’s what mediation’s for, and that didn’t work.”

Negotiations are stalled over salary terms and the length of the contract. The district has offered a two-year contract, while teachers demand a one-year deal.

Bates said the teachers refuse to accept the two-year contract because the district is “not offering us a definite salary amount.”

Brown said the district’s proposal calls for a 7% raise in the first year. In the second year it calls for the state-mandated cost-of-living allowance, or COLA, with 1% put aside to cover health benefits.

For example, if the proposal were effective this year under the 3% COLA proposed in the state budget, the district would use 2% to raise salaries and 1% to contribute to the health-care package.

Bates said the union objects to the proposal because there is no way to determine the 1991 state COLA allocation. Also, teachers fear that it will be insufficient to cover rising health-care costs.

But Brown said: “If the fringe benefit costs are too high, then the employees and the district need to sit down and talk about modifying the fringe program. We just can’t maintain a Cadillac program.”

Harlan said the 220 union-represented teachers in the district will meet Wednesday. “As far as a strike being a possibility down the road,” he said, “I would say anything is a possibility. We’re looking at the possibility of working a whole year without a contract.”