Teachers Seek Early Talks on Contract, Raises

Hoping to get their first raise in seven years, Los Angeles schoolteachers asked the board Monday to open negotiations on a new three-year contract a year before their current one expires.

A representative of the teachers union told Los Angeles Unified School District board members that the teachers intend only to renegotiate economic issues such as salaries and health and welfare benefits.

Sam Kresner, assistant to the president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said the union does not yet have a bargaining position because it does not know how much money is available for salaries in the new state budget.

However, Kresner said he thinks there should be enough to exceed the 2% the teachers received last year as a one-time bonus.

“We think we’re going to get the 2% and a little more,” Kresner said. “But we really don’t know.”

The district’s financial officer has agreed to meet with representatives of the teachers union today to go over the budget, Kresner said.

As a result of the state’s budget crisis, salaries of most of the district’s 37,000 certificated employees were slashed by 10% in the early 1990s. Teacher salaries were then restored to the 1990-91 level with the current three-year contract, which went into effect in the 1995-96 school year. Last year, district employees received a 2% bonus on top of their base pay, but the board made it clear then that it was a one-time payment.

Kresner said he expects the bonus to be made permanent and possibly increased. He said he hoped the talks would be amicable and that by negotiating a long-term contract early, much of the hostility of previous negotiations could be avoided.

“What we are trying to show is that we don’t have to fight all the time,” Kresner said. “We think the district has shown good faith in trying to reduce the administration.”

The school board scheduled a public hearing Friday to consider the request.

School board member David Tokofsky responded favorably to the request.

“I was very happy with a three-year contract,” he said. “I look forward to some concrete proposals.”

Tokofsky said he hoped a new contract would “address the cost-of-living increase issues that have not been met.”