Teachers’ Protest

Re “Teachers Protest Merit Pay Proposal,” March 29: It is the ultimate irony that protesting teachers are photographed carrying signs that read “Save Public Education,” while opposing the plan to link their pay to performance.

In most, if not all, professions, pay and promotion are rewards for excellence. The teachers union may be committed to protecting the mediocre among its ranks, but such a stand by the leadership does little to promote confidence in the public school system and reinforces the image that the teachers union cares more about its members’ pay and benefits than the children they are charged to educate.

RICHARD ROSENTHAL

Long Beach

*

I’ve been a teacher with L.A. Unified for nine years and I wish there was a way to communicate the depth of the angst I feel.

During the last two years I’ve spent $12,000 out of my pocket to keep my computer lab going. The district contribution to my lab was a big fat zero. I do this because I want my kids to have a fair shot in the new e-economy.

I have friends with only high school educations whose starting salaries as data entry clerks, Webmasters or network administrators are $30,000 to $40,000 a year. L.A. Unified starts its teachers off at less than $30,000 a year. We are college-educated professionals. Under these circumstances, the issue should be fair pay, not merit pay.

CURTIS BELL

Lawndale

*

Thousands of other union members from at least 20 different unions also marched from seven different locations downtown, converging in Pershing Square in a striking show of unity on March 28.

Over this next year contracts covering 250,000 union members will expire. The growing wage gap between the rich and the poor and the increasing effects of globalization are making it harder and harder for working people to earn a decent living with job security and good benefits. Forty-eight percent of all full-time workers in L.A. have no health insurance. County workers and MTA workers face privatization. Jobs in the entertainment industry are leaving the country, and home care workers and janitors are fighting to get out of poverty.

Since 1990, poverty in L.A. County has risen 64.5%. Meanwhile, 50 of L.A.’s richest individuals have a total wealth of $60 billion, equal to the total income of 2 million workers in the manufacturing, service, retail and transportation industries. Unions that are fighting for a change are the only effective solution we have for addressing poverty.

LISA FITHIAN

Los Angeles