LINCOLN HEIGHTS : Day-Care Workers End 3-Day Strike

More than 50 employees of four day-care centers in Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights returned to work Monday after a three-day strike, but have not given up their battle for better wages and health benefits and left open the possibility of another walkout.

Teachers and teaching assistants, all members of Local 1108 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, are still trying to win changes in their contract with the Los Angeles Child Care and Development Council, which operates the publicly funded day-care centers for low-income working parents.

The employees are upset about not receiving cost of living increases or bonuses and that a union-sponsored health insurance policy was revoked by the council earlier this year.

They also are angry that a 5.5% wage increase promised to employees with 10 years’ seniority was withdrawn.

“We need more money to survive,” said Roberta Medina, a teacher who has worked in Boyle Heights’ Early Learning Center for 21 years and grosses $571 every two weeks. “Look at the cost of living these days. We’re tired of living beneath the poverty level.”

Pamela Dodd, executive director of the Lincoln Heights-based council, says teachers did not receive a cost of living raise this year because the council itself has not received a cost of living increase from the state.

The center’s budget, which totals nearly $3 million, comes from state, municipal and federal sources, she said, and money for nonprofit early education centers is tight.

“I can’t guarantee them a cost of living raise if we don’t get cost of living, and in the last four years, we have not had a cost of living increase from the state,” Dodd said.

Dodd said the council was able to manage a 3% cost of living raise last year but cannot do so this year, and has not had enough surplus money to award bonuses allowed under certain contract terms.

The wage increase Dodd had planned for employees with seniority was withdrawn because the funds did not materialize, she said.

To make up for the lack of raises, partial compensation was given earlier this year to teachers with more than 24 units of childhood development course work and teaching assistants with more than six units. But assistants who have studied at occupational learning centers, which do not count units, believe that this is unfair.

“They don’t count our time there,” said five-year teaching assistant Laura Hernandez. “They should count seniority, experience, bilingualism and all the workshops we’ve been to.”

The day-care employees also are upset because a union-sponsored health insurance plan, of which the council was to cover 95% of costs, was replaced earlier this year with the council’s own policy.

“Technically, it was illegal for us to make payments to the union if they did not have a legal medical trust,” Dodd said.

The union filed a complaint against the council with the National Labor Relations Board, but the board recently ruled in the council’s favor, concluding that the union could not prove it had an appropriate medical fund. Employees must now use the council’s health plan, which many feel is too expensive.

One last major contract snag is the fact that there is no language in the existing contract--implemented as the council’s best and last offer in May--that allows for the contract to be reopened and terms renegotiated.

Fernando Tovar, chairman of the council board, said that the contract can be modified if both the union and the council agree to a change, and wages can be modified if funding increases.

The teachers and assistants say they went back to work for the benefit of the more than 250 children they care for, but that it is possible they will walk out a second time. They hope to contact parents and garner their support before approaching the council again.

In the meantime, Dodd said she will wait to see another counterproposal.

“Some of the problems are simply language, others are dollar issues,” she said. “But I cannot commit the money until I know it’s going to be there.”