Teachers Will Picket Homes of Trustees

Teachers from the Orange Unified School District plan to picket the homes of school board members today in an attempt to speed up sluggish contract negotiations.

Hazel Stover, president of the 1,100-member Orange Unified Education Assn., said the union would target board members Alan E. Irish and Lila Beavans. They will be urged to call the superintendent and tell him to settle with the teachers.

“We feel that neither (Beavans nor Irish) has been very sensitive to the needs of the teaching staff and they don’t understand the issues, and we want to encourage them to be supportive,” Stover said.

The union and the district reopened talks on parts of the 1989-92 contract in February. Steve McDonald, executive director of the education association, said the talks intensified last month but slowed almost to a halt this week.

“We have moved about as far as we can,” McDonald said. “We have made every attempt to meet the district’s needs.”

Richard L. Donahue, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services, called the union’s position premature. He said the district is trying to be fair and financially prudent.

On the table are salary increases, health benefits and a controversial retiree benefit plan.

Current employees are eligible for a plan that pays almost all medical costs for retirees and their dependents for life. The savings to the district would be about $4,500 per employee each year, McDonald said.

The union is also asking for a 14.8% increase in health benefits plus a 5% salary increase in the first year of the contract and a cost-of-living adjustment plus a 1% salary increase in the second year.

The district has proposed a maximum compensation increase of 4.76%, including cost-of-living increases.