2 Views of Teacher Negotiations : Union, School Board Leaders Tell of Frustration, Ways to Break Impasse

A s the Los Angeles Unified School District teeters on the edge of a potentially crippling teachers strike, the two top leaders presiding over the increasingly intense negotiations met at The Times on Thursday to discuss the talks in the troubled school district.

School board President Leticia Quezada has served on the board through grueling financial decisions in which an unprecedented $400 million was cut to balance the district’s $3.9-billion budget this year.

In large measure, the reductions were achieved by cutting the salaries of almost all district employees, including teachers, whose paychecks this Friday will reflect a 12% cut from what they earned two years ago.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein said the 28,000-member union is fighting not only to protect hard-won salaries but to preserve the integrity of the teaching profession at a time of plummeting morale.

The union wants a two-year contract and assurances that the pay cuts will be restored. The district is balking at providing a guarantee.

Teachers have struck twice before--the last time for nine chaotic days in 1989 to win a 24% raise over three years.

At a time when Los Angeles is still staggering from the blows of rioting last spring, Quezada and others fear that a teachers strike could turn the schools into flash points of anger and unrest.

Quezada and Bernstein were interviewed by Times education writers Stephanie Chavez and Sandy Banks.

Q: How are negotiations progressing?

QUEZADA: By my estimation, it’s going too slow. And I really feel an urgency that time is running out on us and the discussions of the implications of some of the issues are just taking too long to ascertain. I’m feeling an urgency that it has to go faster.

BERNSTEIN: I certainly share her urgency, but I do believe the frustration level is on our part because we believe the board is taking too long. I don’t speak for Leticia, but I suspect her frustration is with her own people. They just weren’t calling us.

Q: Is there a way to speed up the process?

QUEZADA: I’ve discussed it personally with Sid (district Supt. Sid Thompson) on an everyday basis. The reason it’s going so slow is that it is complicated. The staff is trying to work out the details. My comment is that at some point you have to ballpark figures, rather than wait for exact figures.

Q: What would it take to achieve a settlement and avert a strike?

BERNSTEIN: It’s not a secret on our part. We need to see an entire package. We need a commitment over two years because we are absolutely convinced if we don’t have it, we will be right back here in six months. For us, it’s no secret that we want savings that we engender to come back to our unit. We want some guarantees about that money once it is saved. We want some security about how the district is going to be restructured.

Q: Are any pay cuts acceptable?

BERNSTEIN: We have to feel comfortable that every single penny that could have been saved has been saved. We have to be able to be honest to our constituents. We believe that we can create savings this year and want it guaranteed back to us.

Q: Would that in effect reduce the pay cut this year?

BERNSTEIN: Yes. We all understand that there is not a pot of money that we can say: “That pot there, we want it.” But we believe that we can create pots of money if people will begin to do business in a different way. We’re aware that times are tough. But we have solutions and we need commitments to go with those solutions. And then we can look at the whole package.

QUEZADA: The question is, where are the obstacles? How will this work so that the savings can be returned to employees? That is what I am frustrated about. I have no sense of that right now. I have no sense of how those details work out so that UTLA and the district will be comfortable.

Q: So it’s not the concepts that you have trouble with, but the details?

QUEZADA: The concept of streamlining management, we are very interested in. The concept that we ought to save wherever we can save and give employees incentives, we very much support. We would love to be able to say we will not have a pay cut next year. Now the question is, financially, how will it work? Q: You both agree that the lack of adequate funding from Sacramento is at the root of the problem. But have the district’s troubles hurt its credibility there?

QUEZADA: My sense is that there is a certain jealousy outside of the district. The first to criticize L.A. are those who would like to take money out of L.A. and give it to their school district. It makes no difference to them that we have the most students in the state, the neediest students in the state.

The biggest criticism that Pete Wilson has is that we gave an 8-8-8 to teachers, (a 24% salary raise over three years). I would say it was the right thing to do. He would have been much happier if we had not done that, but I don’t think our local school district would be much happier.

BERNSTEIN: First of all, we all get the same amount of funding (per student). If we are all getting the same amount of money, I can’t blame Sacramento people for asking: “What’s going on here that is making it different?”

Again, we come up with an incredible set of circumstances where we have the highest-paid administrators, highest-paid clerical workers and the lowest-paid teachers. Secondly, it cannot be our salaries that created this problem. It has to do with the district’s budgeting priorities and the way decisions are made.

QUEZADA: There is a very huge charge that administrators make too much money and that there are too many administrators. This board made substantial cuts in administration and we are a whole lot more efficient than other districts. We only spend 3.5 cents out of every dollar on central administration; the rest of the county is spending 7 cents. When you talk about comparing the salaries of our administrators with administrators in any other district, that is not fair and not accurate. You can’t compare any one of our administrators to the director of transportation division in Alhambra or Montebello--there is a huge difference.

Q: Whether there is a strike or not, it’s clear that teachers have very poor morale. What will it take--and whose responsibility is it--to restore morale?

QUEZADA: Obviously, it starts with the financial stability of the district. Stability that can restore the pay cuts and look forward to a time when we can talk about raises. We have to talk about how we are going to improve the finances of this district for the long term. Whether that means a sales tax increase or a property tax increase or additional revenues and resources from private sector investment, although those things take a political will on the part of Los Angeles. The other big part is the healing process. There is rebuilding of confidence and rebuilding of morale that has to take place.

BERNSTEIN: You have to answer the question on two levels. Clearly in this country our first national pastime is baseball. Our second national pastime is teacher bashing. Hopefully, a change in administration will be the beginning of leadership that recognizes public education. Secondly, we can start with the very famous list. She says they have made administrative cuts, things have really changed. I suspect Leticia believes that. Where’s the list? Who got cut? Who got moved? And more importantly, who is now in charge of those responsibilities of those departments that got cut? That information has not been conveyed to us.

Q :Would you accept anything less than a two-year contract that would guarantee no pay cuts next year?

BERNSTEIN: I think for me personally, I’m much more prone to worrying about the next two years. And then maybe we can all look at Sacramento and start lobbying together.

Secondly, the fact of the matter is if we don’t have something (a settlement) that teachers can tolerate, the hostility, the conflict, the anger, it’s not going to go away. Strike or no strike, these people are not going to do anything extra. They’re not gonna feel good about whatever it is they are doing. And, very honestly, most who can leave are going to leave. Certainly security is our No. 1 issue, followed by a reorganization and a reprioritizing of the budget so that we cannot keep having the same problem.

Q: We hear a lot of talk that there can’t be business as usual. Things have to change. Give us an example of the most important change that needs to happen.

BERNSTEIN: Fund the classroom first. Throw out the budget and start right now funding the classroom first. And then you fund everything else after that. That’s how other districts that are progressive in funding, in budgeting, do it.

QUEZADA: This board has maintained a position that we want to support the classroom and that any budget decision is driven by how does this help the classroom. . . . So I think the philosophy is very much what this board of education supports. The financial conditions of the district in the last four years have made it literally impossible to show that that’s what we believe.

The proposal has been made, for example, that school police does not contribute to the classroom. So abandon them from our district budget and give it to Willie Williams. Well, you know we debated that issue, and we requested that Mr. Williams take over our school police and provide us the service within their budget. And they said: “No, we’re having our own budget cut and we can’t provide for that.” So the choice comes back to the board to say: “Do we continue providing school police? Or do we cut it out completely because they are deemed unnecessary, because they’re not in the classroom?” So far, the judgment has been that we have to keep the school police. I think the driving force is that we’re trying to provide a little bit of everything. A little bit of all the services that a school should have. And we’re not even doing a good job of that because of the lack of funding.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

QUEZADA: As a school board member and an elected official, I really represent the public interest. My concern is that there’s almost a doomsday approach to this whole issue of education. I represent a school district that is 86% ethnic minority, where the majority of the parents in the school system probably live under the poverty line. And so my message is, despite all of these very wrenching problems that we have, what is important in the final analysis is that our schools must survive. Our schools must keep their doors open for the very long future.

So much of what we’ve been discussing is so depressing and leaves you to think, well, let’s just close the doors and go home. I want to make sure that people understand that those of us who live here and who are representatives of those populations will say we’re gonna fight despite all the odds. And we’re going to continue fighting, and look for ever so small a progress and ever so small a solution, because we have to keep our schools open. There is just no question about that. Giving up hope is not something that we can afford.

I was talking to a parent last night who has 11 children. A Latina parent who has 11 children, the oldest one of whom is a teacher in Van Nuys. Either we’re gonna educate that family, and that teacher who’s now in the classroom is going to educate those children so that that family of 11 is gonna have some hope in Los Angeles, or we’re gonna close down the doors. And I don’t think we can afford to close down the doors.

BERNSTEIN: When I leave this office, I want to leave a profession that somebody wants to come into. And I will guarantee you that if nothing changes, forget it. We’re going to have 4,000 classrooms next year with a non-credentialed teacher or no teacher at all. Teachers are coming to me filing for bankruptcy. These teachers are coming to me losing their homes. These teachers are coming to me leaving the city and leaving the profession.

The commitment of the people that I represent is to provide a quality education for every young person in this city regardless of their background, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their race, so that they will have the opportunity to reach whatever potential they have. And I don’t know of any other group of people that affects the direction of our nation as much as a classroom teacher. And, quite honestly, what is happening in this city, what’s happening to education in general, the fact that we’re even having this debate, is absolutely criminal. The future of every young person depends on us.