Teaching Assistants Halt Their Strike Until Monday
Teaching assistants in the Los Angeles school system said Wednesday that they will return to work today, halting their “rolling strike” until Monday, even though they have not reached a contract with the district.
“It’s a rolling strike, and by nature it’s unpredictable,” said John Tanner, president of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which is negotiating its first contract for 10,000 assistants. Both sides said talks ended Wednesday without progress and that no new sessions have been scheduled.
District officials have maintained that the union lacks support and that schools are carrying on without the assistants, 70% of whom are bilingual Latinas and work at heavily Latino schools.
The union says that on Wednesday 1,400 teaching assistants at 152 schools failed to show up for work in West Los Angeles, South-Central Los Angeles and Wilmington-San Pedro. The district put the figure at 250 assistants at 20 schools.
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