L.A. Teachers Union Board Against Strike but Opposes Pay Cut : Education: Leaders advise membership to seek further negotiations. Hard economic times weigh heavily in decision to recommend no walkout.

The governing board of the Los Angeles teachers union has overwhelmingly voted to recommend that the district’s teachers remain on the job next month. But it also has urged its membership to reject the administration’s plan to cut their pay by 3% this year and to call for further negotiations.

United Teachers-Los Angeles spokeswoman Catherine Carey said the decision to recommend against an immediate strike reflects economic realities, not satisfaction with the pay cut, which will show up on checks to be issued Dec. 11.

“With the economic times as hard as they are, it’s a very difficult thing for our members to anticipate an even further loss of pay,” Carey said.

“They’re already going to have (money) taken out of their checks next month. The loss of pay a strike would involve would make it too difficult for many of them right now,” she said.

UTLA President Helen Bernstein said none of the union’s board members voted to accept the pay cut. Of more than 50 board members voting, “four wanted to go on the strike immediately and the others want to see if we can negotiate something better,” she said.

A strike on Dec. 2, the earliest date a walkout could begin, would mean teachers would receive no pay between now and Christmas, Bernstein said. “It’s the timing more than anything. . . . I’d find it hard to ask people to go out under that circumstance,” she said.

To stave off the threat of bankruptcy, the Los Angeles Unified School District board intends to cut the pay of all its employees by 3% this year. Because the cut will be retroactive to last July, the reduction actually will amount to 4.5% of employees’ monthly paychecks. In addition, teachers will lose another 1% of their annual salaries through a two-day unpaid furlough. A teacher earning an average annual salary of $45,000 would lose about $1,800.

Teachers will be asked to vote on the pay-cut package at their schools on Nov. 18 and 19. They will choose from three options: accept the cut, reject the cut and strike on Dec. 2, or reject the cut and send negotiators back to the bargaining table to try for a better deal.

The school district’s chief negotiator, Dick Fisher, said the district is open to further talks with the teachers union but that it has no money to avoid a pay reduction.

Carey said the salary reduction and other cuts ordered by the board--such as the loss of paid conference time and midyear teacher reassignments--may be open to compromise.

“We’re realistic,” she said. “We haven’t asked for a pay raise. If teachers go out (on strike), they’d be going out to try to get back to ground zero. That may be what they want to do, but we need to exhaust every possibility before we ask them to make that sacrifice.”

Meanwhile, more than 500 teachers are expected to retire this month under an early retirement program that the district and teachers union agreed upon last week. Teachers who are 55 or older and have taught in the Los Angeles district for at least 15 years are eligible for bonuses equal to 40% of their annual salaries. District officials said the average retiree earns about $52,000 and will be entitled to a bonus of about $20,700.

The district has 523 retirement spots available for teachers and 77 for administrators, and they will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. On Wednesday, the first day applications were accepted, more than 300 people were in line to apply when district offices opened at 7 a.m.

“Some teachers are so eager to leave, they went in the middle of the night to be sure they’d have a good place in line,” Bernstein said.