SIMI VALLEY : Stalled Talks Prompt Protest From Teachers

In the strongest showing yet of rank-and-file support, about 300 Simi Valley teachers formed a picket line to protest stalled contract negotiations before a school board meeting Tuesday night.

“The board seems to think it’s a just a half dozen union leaders who are the only ones concerned,” said Peggie Noisette, a teacher at Valley View Junior High School. “We want to just show them it’s more than that.”

The teachers carried signs proclaiming, “Big Money From the State, None for Teachers Isn’t So Great” and “We’ve Not Had a Raise in Five Years.”

In a rally, they chanted: “We want a raise, like the raise you gave Mary Beth Wolford.” Wolford, the Simi Valley Unified School superintendent, actually received no raise when her contract was renewed last month. But she was given a $6,900 annual car allowance to replace her district car.

School board members walked past the protest outside of City Hall without stopping.

The teachers have been working without a contract for more than a year and have already agreed to stop volunteering for after-school programs as a sign of protest.

Teachers union president Ron Myren said the picket was designed to show board members that the teachers are upset that they have no contract. “I’ve had to reign some of them in,” Myren said. “They’re fed up. There have been talks of blue flus and sickouts.”

Contract talks reached an impasse last spring and a state mediator was called in. A few weeks ago, the mediator imposed a gag order, saying that neither group is allowed to communicate directly with each other and must go through him.

The teachers union is requesting a 2% pay raise, an improved early retirement plan, and an agreement that would require all teachers--not just those in the union--to pay union dues.

District officials said the latest proposal would cost the district $6.8 million through 1998 and that the teachers already make an average salary of $41,646. Their proposal includes a 2% pay raise that would not take effect until January--instead of September, as the union is requesting--and would not require all teachers to pay union dues.