Hard Line by Teachers Puts Some Parents Off : Education: Support erodes in face of possible strike. Former staunch backers cite recession and say union should compromise over pay cut issue.

In a time of unprecedented financial difficulties for the nation’s second-largest school district, the Los Angeles teachers union--already at odds with fellow bargaining units--is in danger of alienating another concerned group: parents.

Fearful of a possible strike and stung themselves by a stubborn recession, many parents who once stood squarely behind United Teachers-Los Angeles are finding their loyalties torn by what they see as an increasingly militant union campaign to stave off a cumulative 12% slash in pay.

To protest the cut, union leaders have conducted demonstrations, threatened a boycott of extracurricular activities and won authorization to call a strike if negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District fail. Two weeks ago, ruling in a case brought by the teachers union, a judge ordered the district to temporarily rescind the salary reductions--a stunning move that could plunge the school system into bankruptcy.

But UTLA’s high-profile efforts have drawn sharp criticism from parents across the sprawling district who believe that their children have become the casualties in an escalating war between labor and management.

“I am sympathetic to the teachers, because I really believe that teachers should be treated with respect, and salary (is) part of it,” said Tony Alcala, a Sun Valley father of two teen-age sons. “But I’m very disgusted with the tactics that the UTLA leadership has taken. . . . They have no concern for the kids.”

Luz Aguilar, PTA president at Hillside School, near Lincoln Heights, agreed. “They’re hurting the kids; they’re not hurting anybody else,” she said. “That’s something I don’t want to say, but I’m seeing it, and the children are seeing it, too.”

At Hillside, Aguilar said, a job action by disgruntled teachers has led at least two parents who served with her on the school leadership council to leave the decision-making body, which is controlled by teachers.

The teachers on the council--heeding UTLA’s “work-to-rule” campaign, which exhorts them to do no more than they are paid for--recently voted to cancel popular campus cultural events, such as Hillside’s annual winter holiday program and the spring Cinco de Mayo festival. Adding to parents’ ire, a few weeks ago some faculty members also tried to force the closure of a campus Halloween haunted house sponsored by an outside organization.

Such actions have undermined support for teachers, even among parents such as Aguilar who say they sided with the union and helped walk the picket lines during the nine-day 1989 strike that resulted in significant pay raises.

Back then, Aguilar said, “it was more a friendly atmosphere. Everybody supported everybody. Now it’s more of a vendetta--they’re too angry.

“Three years ago they were being paid too little, and they were doing much more for the children than they’re doing now,” she said of the teachers. “Now, it’s like they come in at 8 and they’re out of that parking lot at 2:15. . . . The teachers are getting very little respect from the parents.”

UTLA officials defend such tactics as necessary to call attention to the economic predicament of their rank and file. Three years after a strike settlement granted them a 24% graduated pay raise, teachers face a loss in income that would effectively halve those gains.

“Would the parents know about a 12% pay cut for teachers if the teachers continued to do all these activities? My answer is no,” UTLA spokeswoman Catherine Carey said. “Unfortunately, the district, in its lack of wisdom in terms of downsizing and really cutting nonessential programs . . . has forced the union” into its position.

Carey acknowledged that students have been caught in the cross fire. But they would “get hurt even more if this 12% cut goes through,” she said. “How many people are going to come into L.A. to teach the kids? How many people will stay in L.A. to teach the kids? Not many.”

She added that the union has a legal obligation to protect its members, many of whom may be unable to meet mortgage payments and other bills with their reduced paychecks.

The 12% cut for teachers is part of an across-the-board pay reduction the district has imposed on all 58,000 full-time employees this year to help bridge a $400-million budget gap.

Many parents are sympathetic toward teachers, accusing the school board of mismanaging its $3.9-billion budget. Jan Wolterstorff, a mother of two students on the Westside, said she does not like all the union’s “strong-arm tactics” but believes there is “more fat” that can be trimmed from the district bureaucracy.

“Not every move that the union makes you agree with,” Wolterstorff said. But “the teachers are in a position of basic survival here. I don’t think anybody out there could handle the pay cuts that they would have to be taking. You’re talking hundreds of dollars a month.”

But some parents express frustration that teachers do not appear willing to share in the belt-tightening that has accompanied the economic downturn. In a time when their own jobs and salaries are vulnerable, many parents say, teachers should not expect to be exempt from financial pain.

“The economy doesn’t back what they’re trying to do now,” said Peter Chan, a parent at Granada Hills High School.

“We don’t want teachers to go through it, but everybody’s going through it,” he said.

Although the Parent Teacher Student Assn. officially remains neutral in the contract dispute, there is a general feeling among parents that UTLA should compromise on some of its demands and abandon tactics that unfairly penalize students, said Cindy Wong, president of the 10th District PTSA, which covers all of the district that is not in the San Fernando Valley.

“That’s how we feel--there should be some compromise,” Wong said. “Everybody’s giving a little, except the teachers.”

UTLA officials say they would like parents to also direct their anger at the district and channel energies into volunteer efforts on campus to cushion the impact of cuts in education funding.

“Parents are a powerful lobby. If the school board sees thousands of parents saying: ‘Do something or you’re not going to be there the next election,’ that would be a powerful signal,” Carey said.

But if parents “just want to complain to me and aren’t willing to do anything,” she added, “then I don’t want to listen to them.”