District, 1 Union Reach Agreement : Torrance: Strained labor relations persist between school officials and the other two unions.

One of three unions in the Torrance Unified School District has reached a tentative agreement on a contract, but two others remain without contracts as strained labor relations continue in the district, where teachers staged a massive sickout last week.

The California School Employees Assn., which represents 168 clerical and technical workers, announced Friday that its negotiating team has agreed to a contract that would include a 1% raise and a one-time bonus equal to a 1% raise. Members will vote on the proposal Feb. 12.

But Louise Lavallee, president of CSEA Chapter 19, said she personally is unhappy with the settlement. She criticized what she described as the inflexibility of district negotiators.

“Every time we came up with a creative idea, it was just totally rejected,” Lavallee said.

A spokesman for the district, J. Richard Ducar, said: “We feel very good that one of our three (unions) has hopefully settled.”

Meanwhile, no agreement was in sight Friday with the district’s largest union, the Torrance Teachers Assn., which represents 870 teachers, nurses, librarians, psychologists and counselors. The school board was meeting Friday evening to discuss negotiations.

The district earlier had said it would withdraw its offer of a 1% bonus unless it was accepted by Friday. It also planned to cancel its offer to make the 1% raise retroactive to July 1, 1990.

Franchini said Friday after the school board meeting, however, that the district will delay removing those offers so the union can consider a new offer. Franchini declined to give details of the new offer, saying he needed to present it to the union first. The union’s board of directors will consider it Monday afternoon.

Neither school board President David Sargent nor William A. Franchini, teachers association executive director, appeared optimistic Friday afternoon that a contract agreement was near. Franchini has said the association plans to declare an impasse soon if progress is not made.

An estimated 430 teachers and other employees called in sick last Monday to protest the state of contract talks, forcing the district’s four high schools to close for the day at noon.

On Thursday, North High School administrators ordered a group of about 12 teachers to stop passing out letters to departing students on sidewalks outside the high school, Franchini said. The letters outlined the teachers’ position.

Franchini said administrators verbally abused the teachers and confiscated some of the letters. In response, teachers are planning to march and distribute leaflets in front of North High School on Monday afternoon, Franchini said.

Ducar, the district spokesman, said he knew nothing about any incident and could not comment.

Sargent said he, too, was unaware of any incident, but he added that he thinks teachers should not send labor-related letters to parents via students.

“To mix them into the middle of a labor dispute is unconscionable,” Sargent said Friday.

Teachers had requested an 8% raise, but the district responded with the 1% offer, and later added the bonus offer. District officials have said they do not have the money to pay more and that they may be forced to cut more than $2 million from the district’s 1991-92 budget next month.

The district’s third union, the Service Employees International Union, Local 99, declared an impasse in talks last week, a step that can bring a state mediator into contract talks.