L.A. Teaching Assistants Plan Strike : Education: ‘Rolling’ walkout will target up to 100 schools daily. Aides, mostly bilingual, are demanding a contract providing job security and health benefits.

Teaching assistants in the Los Angeles Unified School District announced Tuesday that they will begin a “rolling” strike today that will involve up to 100 different schools each day until their demands for a contract with job security and health benefits are met.

About 10,000 teaching assistants, 70% of whom are bilingual Latinas, won their bid for union representation in January and have been trying to reach an agreement with the district ever since. They can be hired and fired by the district at will and do not receive sick pay, vacations or medical coverage.

Officials of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union have targeted schools in Pacoima, North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Arleta, Sun Valley and Central Los Angeles for today’s job action. Many of the schools have a high concentration of Latino students who are not proficient in English and few teachers who speak Spanish. On average, there are 30 teaching assistants at each school, a union spokesman said.

“The district isn’t moving far enough or fast enough,” John Tanner, staff director for Local 99, said in a prepared statement. “Teacher assistants will walk out at sites . . . that will cause the utmost disruption within the school district,” the statement said.

The union had set Tuesday as the deadline for reaching an agreement.

School officials have maintained that budget difficulties limit their flexibility in meeting the demands. They have downplayed the effect a rolling strike would have on schools.

“Parents should send their children to school, teachers will be teaching and the majority of teacher assistants will be on the job,” said Diane Munatones, a spokeswoman for the superintendent. Munatones said there “are still some basic disagreements between” the two sides.

United Teachers-Los Angeles, the powerful teacher’s union, refused Tuesday to throw its support behind the teaching assistants. Union president Helen Bernstein said teachers who refuse to cross picket lines may face administrative action from the district.

“We’re telling them they have to go to work,” Bernstein said. “We have a signed contract that we have to honor.”

Bernstein expressed surprise that the teaching assistants would carry out their threat to strike. “I certainly hope Local 99 knows what it’s doing. They are not going to bring the system to a halt.”

Barbara Lewis, a spokeswoman for Local 99, said union officials thought the two sides were close to reaching agreement last week after meeting with school Supt. Bill Anton.

But a spokesman for Anton said the meeting was informal and that no commitments were made. Negotiations are scheduled to resume next Tuesday, both sides said.

Union officials said wages are not an issue, but they want the district to guarantee a set number of working hours each week. Union officials complained that earlier this year the district gave little warning when it slashed the working hours of 2,000 teaching assistants.

Teaching assistant jobs were created in the 1970s and have proliferated as increasing numbers of non-English-speaking students have entered the school system, Lewis said. They generally work side-by-side with teachers, translating lessons for pupils, correcting homework and helping communicate with parents who do not speak English.