Wilson Says Teacher Strike Would Be Unethical : Education: Governor says problem started with multi-year contract that the district could not afford. Negotiators explore complex proposals to ease pay cuts.

Saying that a teachers strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be “unethical,” Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday lashed out against the threatened action as negotiators continued to wrestle with complex proposals to avert it.

“There should not be a strike,” said Wilson, who was in Los Angeles attending a political fund-raiser. “It may be legal but I really don’t think it’s ethical.”

Wilson said that other districts in the state are “manageable” during this budget crisis, and that the source of the Los Angeles school district’s problem is a multi-year contract agreement that the district cannot afford. In 1989, the teachers won a 24% pay raise over three years after a nine-day strike.

“If (teachers’) real concern is the education of children in the Los Angeles Unified School District, then they ought to come to grips with the reality that there simply isn’t more money,” Wilson said while taking questions from reporters at the Century Plaza Hotel. “Certainly there can’t be more from the state. I don’t know where else they think it is going to come from.”

But squeezing more money out of the district’s budget, which suffered a $400-million shortfall this year, is the aim of negotiators.

District and union officials involved in the talks said they are grappling with proposals that stand to create more work for teachers, but could also lessen the sting of salary cuts.

After a resounding vote Thursday by rank-and-file members of the influential United Teachers-Los Angeles to authorize a strike, the focus turns to the progress of negotiations, which are continuing in a series of informal and small meetings, telephone conversations and fax exchanges.

Confronted with a 9% pay cut Nov. 6, on top of a 3% reduction imposed on all district employees that continues from last year, union leaders are hoping to reach a settlement that will include a package of innovative measures, such as having teachers produce savings that could restore some lost earnings.

On the table are a loose set of proposals--most brought forth by the union and in a report by former Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp--that call for a teacher hiring freeze, restructuring the workday of kindergarten teachers and moving some administrators into classrooms.

Each measure is laden with a dizzying array of contingencies, and the discussions are fluid and changing by the day with no answers yet on the table.

However, the issue that stands the highest chance of propelling teachers to the picket line is future salary cuts. The union wants assurances that there will not be any more cuts, while school board members, presenting an unusually unified front, insist that they will not make any guarantees.

UTLA President Helen Bernstein said she is not satisfied with the pace of negotiations and wants to inject a sense of urgency to the talks.

“Twenty-four-hour-a-day negotiations will occur after we are on strike. Why not now?” she asked. The district is “doing everything possible to prepare for a strike and nothing to prepare for a settlement.”

However, school board President Leticia Quezada reiterated that the one unanimous sentiment at the negotiation table is that no one wants the nation’s second-largest school district to be crippled by a strike. The board views the 89% strike authorization vote as a firm order from teachers to return to the bargaining table, she said.

She said the focus of talks is over how to handle next year’s budget, which district officials say will be $100 million short.

One issue centers on the union’s proposal to enact a teacher hiring freeze, which in a best-case scenario union officials believe can generate up to $100 million--a figure the district contends is too high.

But at the same time, a hiring freeze means fewer teachers would be available to students, and class sizes would increase. Several school board members said they are firmly opposed to increasing class sizes, which were hiked last year in a cost-cutting move.

To ameliorate a teacher shortage, the union has proposed a measure in which kindergarten teachers could voluntarily agree to teach two half-day sessions a day instead of one. Their workday would be 90 minutes longer, but they would get paid for it.

Union officials estimate that between 400 and 700 teachers would participate, adding up to savings of about $30 million. The complicating factor is that elementary education is highly regulated by the state and the district may have to obtain a waiver to allow teachers to work two sessions.

Other issues include reducing teacher absenteeism to cut the costs of substitute teachers and to boost student attendance, which would bring in more state funding.

Both sides must also determine how any potential savings should be dispersed. UTLA officials want the savings their members produce to benefit only their salaries. Board members say they must consider other options.

“Should all of the money go to restore teachers’ salaries? Should it be spread among all district salaries or used to address the shortfall in other areas?” asked school board member Mark Slavkin. “Or should it be a combination of both? We are working as hard as possible to forge an agreement, but it’s not a yes or no question.”

Also fueling tension around the negotiating table is the approval of a contract for the district’s 29,000 other employees. In this agreement, the district has promised that if teachers go on a strike that costs the district money, the damages--most likely pay cuts--must be absorbed by teachers and not other employees.

In addition, an “equitable treatment” clause in the contract prohibits the board from granting one union salary hikes or other perks by taking away money from or laying off members of other unions. The unions who signed off on this clause include administrators as well as clerks and teaching assistants.

Bernstein criticized the terms, saying that it is an example of how the district is unwilling to undertake an examination of units and programs that should be eliminated or cut back. The union believes is that district spending priorities should be reordered to put teachers and the classroom first.

Quezada said that the board’s philosophy during the painful budget-cutting process has been to treat all employees equitably and to avert as many layoffs as possible during the recession.

Times staff writer Bill Stall contributed to this story.